Mr REPACHOLI (Hunter) (17:45):

Wines, mines and equines-these are three great industries that I'm proud to have in my electorate, the Hunter. Today I rise to speak about the wine industry and, in particular, what an important industry it is! First off, almost 4,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by the wine industry in the Hunter. That's roughly five per cent of all working people. There are all sorts of jobs tied to this industry: jobs for those who grow grapes, jobs for those who make wine itself, jobs waiting tables at wineries, jobs providing tastings and jobs providing accommodation for visitors-so many jobs.

There are over 1,800 visitor economy businesses registered in the Hunter, and many hundreds of these employ the thousands of workers in the wine industry. They are viticulture, winemaking, cellar door, restaurant, accommodation and tourist attraction businesses. One of the things that is very special about the workers in this industry is that they are people of a wide range of ages, with both young and old workers involved in the process of making wine. This is an industry where knowledge is being transferred from the older generations down to the younger generations. Knowledge has been passed down like this for a very long time.

In fact, there's nowhere else in Australia where wine has been made longer than in the Hunter. We've been making wine in the Hunter for almost 200 years. We are the oldest wine region in Australia. Those South Australians make a lot of claims when it comes to wine-all of which I strongly disagree with!-but they can never claim that the wine regions of South Australia are the oldest or more prestigious than the Hunter Valley. We also have heritage plant stocks of international significance, such as shiraz from 1867, semillon from 1899 and chardonnay from 1908. This is one of the oldest chardonnay vineyards in the world.

Today the wine industry has grown into an economic powerhouse, generating over 5 a bottle, but the average wholesale price per litre for exported Hunter wine is 641 million of economic value, the wine industry has well and truly helped put the Hunter on the map, and it continues to do that today.

A massive shout-out to Jennie Curran and Stu Hordern from the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association for all the great work they do, and a massive thankyou to all the amazing people involved in the wine industry and in making the Hunter what it is today.