Mr Hartsuyker spoke of his concern over misleading labelling when he visited Daryl Nunn’s Woodward Street Butchery on Wednesday.

Mr Hartsuyker and Federal Member for Calare and Opposition agriculture, fisheries and forestry spokesman John Cobb said the Federal Government had weakened Australia’s border security with cuts to quarantine and customs.

Mr Cobb said the National Party supported truth in labelling so people knew what they were buying.

“Before meat from BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease] countries is allowed in and before the ETS is rushed through, we are asking the Rudd Government to fix our food labelling laws so we will at least be able to know what we are getting and where it is from,” Mr Cobb said.

“The current food labelling laws are sufficiently vague that consumers could be misled as to the Australian content.”

Mr Hartsuyker said most Australians wanted to support Australian products.

“When they see something labelled Made in Australia they think they are doing that, but it might not be the case,” he said.

“People also have concerns over price so Australian products need to be competitively priced.”

Mr Cobb said most people didn’t understand the difference between the term Made in Australia, which may refer to the packaging and not the meat, and Product of Australia, which is legally required to have a higher percentage of Australian components.

“We just assume if Australia is listed, it’s Australian,” he said.

“It’s not good enough to say our food is made from local and imported ingredients or products.

“Country of origin labelling is extremely important to ensure that in any disease or contamination outbreaks we can quickly and accurately trace the source and the country where the contaminated product originated from.

“Nobody produces as pure a product as we do [in Australia].”