Senate to launch broad inquiry into wine industry

The Senate will hold a broad-ranging inquiry into the Australian wine industry, which is experiencing a long-running grape glut and low prices for growers. South Australian Senator Anne Ruston, who lives in the state’s Riverland wine region, moved for the inquiry to investigate whether there was market failure in the industry and whether government policies could help the industry become more profitable. “For the last couple of years, I’ve constantly watched as the industry has battled with a number of issues and it became apparent that there were perhaps some opportunities that we should have been pursuing that we weren’t.”