BALDWIN, Mr Robert Charles, Paterson 190 11.12 am Baldwin, Robert, MP LL6 Paterson LP 1 0Mr BALDWIN(Paterson—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources)(11.12 am)—I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I am very pleased today to be introducing the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Amendment Bill 2007, which implements the government’s commitment to substantially improve food regulation processes in Australia and New Zealand. The proposed amendments of the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991, the act, have emanated from a number of different projects involving extensive consultations with all Australian state and territory governments, the New Zealand government, the food industry and consumer and public health groups, and I am delighted with the broad support for the proposed amendments.

In the past 10 years the food regulatory environment in Australia has undergone a number of significant changes. In order to reflect this changing environment the legislation which governs food regulation has been amended on a number of occasions. The last amendments in 2001 were part of a reform package that restructured the food regulation system. It conferred policy responsibility for the food policy framework on the ministerial council comprising ministers representing all relevant portfolios, and it established a new independent statutory authority, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, to develop and approve science-based food standards. The package also retained the requirement that the ministerial council be satisfied with any approved standard.

Since the commencement of the new system in 2002, ongoing feedback from consumers, government and industry has highlighted the number of areas where the authority’s operations could be improved. In particular, a recent review of the food standard development and approval processes highlighted areas in which processes should be streamlined and harmonised, red tape could be reduced and innovation in the food industry could be further encouraged. The underlying issue is that virtually all applications and proposals are being processed in the same way, regardless of whether these are for major or minor amendment to a standard or for a new standard altogether. Even applications for minor technical amendments are subject to the full gamut of two rounds of public consultation, three sets of reports and the opportunity for ministerial council review.

It was found that the average time taken to complete a full assessment of an application was 16.8 months. This has led to a considerable backlog of applications. Anyone who lodges an application can expect to wait 15 to 18 months before assessment of the application could commence. To address this problem, the bill before us amends the act to enable the authority to assess different applications and proposals according to their nature and scope. Three different streams will replace the current one size fits all model, resulting in a targeted assessment process that will improve efficiency and reduce average assessment times. Improvements have also been included to better engage stakeholders in the standards development processes.

Another issue that was identified by the review was the need to improve the capacity to align the processes between the policy development undertaken by the ministerial council and the standard development process of the authority. The bill addresses this issue by further strengthening the complementary roles of the authority and the ministerial council. The bill enables the authority to suspend consideration of an application to await policy advice from the ministerial council when policy on the same issue as the application is under development. Currently, there is no simple way for the authority to defer dealing with an application to amend a standard, even if it knows that the ministerial council is concurrently developing policy guidelines that will affect this standard. This approach has been endorsed by the ministerial council. It strikes the necessary balance between aligning the functions of the ministerial council and the authority and processing applications without undue delay.

The second change in relation to the ministerial council is to streamline the process for finalising standards. Subject to necessary changes to the food treaty between Australia and New Zealand, the bill amends the review procedure that is available to the ministerial council after the authority has approved the standard. The removal of the option for a second review will significantly streamline the process to finalise standards while still ensuring appropriate oversight of standards by the ministerial council.

As a part of the review, a great deal of feedback was received on better management of issues related to food innovation. An area identified by industry as having the biggest potential for food innovation was that of health claims. As a result of extensive consultation with all interested parties, the bill addresses the main concerns of the industry by including a new process for the scientific pre-market assessment and approval of high-level health claims. The nutrition, health and related claims standard is currently under development by the authority. Once the standard is approved, individuals and companies will be required to make applications to the authority for pre-market approval of high-level health claims which will then be assessed against the standard and, if approved, added to the list of approved claims.

The new process described in the bill ensures that if and when the new nutrition, health and related claims standard takes effect, all high-level health claims will be fully assessed by the authority, with the advice of an expert committee and in consultation with states, territories and New Zealand. Once the authority approves the inclusion of the claim in the standard, the amended standard will be considered by the ministerial council in the usual way. This process ensures proper assessment of the claim against the standard and also encourages innovation in this area by enabling claims to remain confidential.

To remove unnecessary red tape and duplication and to improve clarity, the bill also makes several minor and consequential amendments. An example is an amendment to the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994. The amendment enables the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to refer applications relating to maximum residue limits to the authority and for these to be dealt with in a streamlined manner. This will align the processes of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and the food authority for the cooperative setting of maximum residue limits and will remove unnecessary red tape and duplication.

The Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs and the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills reviewed the bill and made recommendations. In response to these recommendations, the government introduced three minor amendments to the bill. These amendments were adopted by the Senate. The state, territory and New Zealand governments have been closely involved in the development of this legislation. All are jointly committed to a food regulation system that runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible while still maintaining the existing open and publicly accountable arrangements that ensure the protection of public health and safety. This bill reflects this commitment. I commend this bill to the House.

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