It said then that it recognised declining margins from import competition as a major impediment to food sector growth in Australia.

The huge volumes of imported food from China received special attention, with the Labor election policy paper for primary industries saying consumers are often confused.

Consumers often do not understand what is meant by ‘Made in’ and ‘Product of’ labels.

As an example, fruit juice sold as ‘Made in Australia’ can contain 100pc imported juice.

At the time, Labor promised to invest $5 million to create a 'Promoting Australian Produce' program.

Idea was to assist farmers to raise awareness of premium quality of Australian produce, including home grown fruit, vegetables, pork and seafood products.

Late last year, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, told a NSW Farm Writers luncheon in Sydney that the Federal Cabinet was "quite determined" to make existing food labelling laws better than they are now "but we're early into that process".

He said fixing current laws would not be quick, and the number of stakeholders involved makes the problem more difficult.

Draft guidelines for new front-of-packaging labelling are expected to be released in May this year.

Opposition spokesman for agriculture, John Cobb, says neither side of politics has got the issue of labelling right for the past 40 years.

So a new focus on country of origin labelling is urgently needed to address the hurt being caused to Australian producers as imports continue to grow.

Mr Cobb believes the attractiveness of cheaper food from countries like China will become greater once an emissions trading scheme is introduced in Australia.

That's likely to force processors to look for food which isn't going to come with a carbon tax added to the price.