Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity today to endorse the report which has a clear message for consumers produced by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry. This is the first involvement I have had with a committee and the production of a report. It was a thoroughly satisfying experience, and I think it is the best of what we can be in this place—where members from all sides of the political divide come together and make a contribution. I am very proud to have been involved and I look forward to being involved in many more reports in the future.

Country–of-origin food labelling is a critically important issue, particularly as consumers become more discerning about what they eat and where their food comes from. As information technology becomes more available, people can access that information more readily and access adverse information where they fear that food may be dangerous.

It is a very important report, particularly for producers in my electorate. The horticultural industry around Warren Blackwood, which is making giant strides in establishing its brand under the Southern Forests Food Council, is one of many primary-producing organisations around my electorate who will benefit from stronger and more robust food labelling.

In addition to that, the recently signed free trade agreements with China, Korea and Japan also mean that we need more robust country-of-origin labelling, particularly so that Australian food being exported into those markets can be identified as such.

In the lead-up to the report, we were hearing of widespread dissatisfaction from all sectors of the industry with the current arrangements and the difficulty in defining the safe harbour arrangements as they currently stood. The terms of reference that we finally arrived at and were given by the ministers asked us to investigate, in the first instance, whether the current country-of-origin labelling system provided enough information for Australian consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.

The second term of reference was whether Australia's country-of-origin labelling laws are being complied with and what, if any, are the practical limitations to compliance. The third term of reference was whether improvements could be made, including to simplify the current system and reduce the compliance burden. The fourth term of reference was whether Australia's country-of-origin laws are being circumvented by staging imports through third countries; and, five, the impact of Australia's international trade obligations of any proposed changes that we might propose.

I admit to be being a little sceptical that we would come up with anything from this review, given that there had been many reviews conducted in the past and most of them ended up going nowhere. I have to say that, given the enthusiastic leadership of the member for Grey, Rowan Ramsey, as the chairman of the committee and the excellent work of the other committee members—and I will not name them all—as I have said previously, it was a pleasure working with them and we have given a new dimension to this issue.

I also believe that we have developed a constructive set of recommendations which, if adopted, will give some very clear guidelines to consumers, reassurance to those of us who care about the origins of the food we eat and give Australian producers the opportunity to better identify their locally grown food.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evidence-gathering process where we took evidence in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, where we did a field trip to some of the producers who were directly affected. The whole committee appreciated the fact that these people took the time to come and give evidence. We also appreciated getting a broader understanding of the issues around the nation.

I want to run through the recommendations we have come up with and give a small explanation of them. Recommendation 1 from the report is that the committee recommends that the Australian government implement the following country-of-origin labelling safe harbours. 'Grown in' represents 100 per cent content of the country specified—in other words if it is claimed that it is grown in Australia, then consumers can be confident that it is 100 per cent grown in Australia. 'A product of' indicates 90 per cent of the content from the country specified. This is where some of the more important changes that we have suggested come in: 'made in from Australian ingredients' indicates 90 per cent from the country specified. 'Made in', for example Australia, 'from mostly local ingredients' specifies more than 50 per cent Australian content; and 'made in' Australia, in this particular example, 'from mostly imported ingredients' specifies less than 50 per cent Australian content. That is an important recommendation because it does specify much more clearly than the current system what those specifications are.

Recommendation 2 is that the committee recommends that the Australian government amend the standard 1.2.9 of the Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code will allow for the prescription of the country-of-origin label text information on packaged foods be increased in size when compared with the surrounding text on a product label. It came up many times in evidence that the country-of-origin labelling was in very small text amongst much bigger advertising and promotional text. That is another important recommendation.

Recommendation 3 is that the committee recommends that the Australian government increase the scrutiny of products with mostly or all imported ingredients that use misleading Australian symbols, icons and imagery. Once again, evidence was presented on several occasions of imported product that used the Australian flag or the kangaroo for the koala to give the obviously misleading impression that it was an Australian product when it was wholly imported from another country.

Recommendation 4 is that the committee recommends the introduction of visual descriptor that reflects the safe harbour thresholds of Australian ingredients in the content of the product. A very simple system of a symbol, rather than a text or in addition to text, so that shoppers in a supermarket aisle can very easily pick up a product and identify the country of origin, specifically Australian.

I would also like to mention recommendation 6—I will not mention every recommendation—that we voluntarily institute a bar code so people with mobile phones can access the bar code and get all the information they require while they are in the supermarket. As we have said previously, people are looking for much more information on the source of the food that they eat. The rest of the recommendations are on the record, and I would urge people to get hold of the report and look at it. I would like to close today by thanking the secretariat for the wonderful work that they did throughout the process—in particular the secretary Julia Morris; the secretary of the inquiry, Anthony Overs; senior research officer Lauren Wilson; research officer Leonie Bury; and administrative officer Prudence Zuber. I will close by endorsing the report for the parliament. I am very proud of the little part I played in putting it together.

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