Excerpt:
Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi has described Muslim halal certifiers as ‘cockroaches’ who are running an extortion racket on the nation’s food suppliers.
The 48-year-old Liberal Party defector has stepped up his campaign to regulate the industry as more than 500 workers at Sydney’s Red Lea Chickens are without work, following the company’s decision last year to stop serving pork-based bacon.
The Adelaide-based senator has accused the Islamic halal certification industry, which charges food producers fees to declare their goods contain no pork or alcohol, of lacking transparency.
He compared them unfavourably with Jewish kosher certifiers, claiming Muslim halal businesses were evasive with a Senate inquiry he was part of in 2016.
‘The halal certifiers, they ran like cockroaches under the fridge when the light comes on,’ he told Sydney radio 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones on Monday.