Pauline Hanson has joined the growing chorus of Aussies calling for action against Chinese buyers hoarding tins baby formula to sell back home for a profit.
For months now, some supermarkets and chemists around the country have been struggling to keep up with the demand for Australian baby formula, with many local mums missing out.
Hanson told Sunrise on Sunday that her own daughter had difficulty finding formula for her new son because Chinese shoppers had raided the shelves.
“I know there is a big problem Australia wide because a lot of chemists are really limiting it to one or maybe two tins per customer, which I think is fair,” the One Nation leader said.
“A lot of the Chinese here also are sending in their children are young as four to buy tens. It is a big problem.
“Someone should jump in and manufacture more and export to China. A lot of foreign students are doing it. They are using it as extra income. They are selling it back to China.
“It is a big problem and I feel sorry for the mothers here who have trouble getting formula as my daughter did.”
It comes after the Herald Sun released footage of a Melbourne chemist opening its doors under the cover of dark to let a long line of Chinese shoppers snap up the formula before anyone else got a chance.
The issue got so bad at one point last year that Coles and Woolworths were forced to put a two-unit per customer limit on tins of formula — a rule that’s still in place today.
However, while plenty of local mums are backing calls for change, Brisbane businesswoman Jessica Rudd, Kevin Rudd’s daughter, says Aussies should appreciate the fact that Chinese buyers are promoting Australian goods in Asia.
According to The Australian, Rudd told the Global Food Forum that Australians should use the opportunity to sell our lifestyle and country to the Asian market.
“It’s the Chinese community, a bunch of students and young mums going out there putting in the hard work to go into pharmacies and supermarkets and whatever and pick up products that no one in China has ever heard of and build a market for them,” she said.
“We have the audacity to call it a problem.”