Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I had intended to direct my question to the honourable Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, but I see I have the great pleasure of being joined by the Minister for Small Business, under whose portfolio consumer affairs quite rightly sits. That is where I would like to direct my question; however, I am happy for either of you to provide the answer. My question relates to a very serious issue that is affecting children all around Australia—button batteries. By way of background: button batteries are, as the name suggests, small coin-shaped batteries that are used in a range of electrical products. They are also quite often used in the retail and supply of small toys. This is a very pertinent issue as we head towards the Christmas period when toys containing button batteries will be increasingly available on the market. They will be on the shelves and will eventually end up under Christmas trees in the homes of Australians all over the country.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:5 7 to 18:13

As I was saying, button batteries present significant risks to young children. If they are swallowed by toddlers they can become lodged in the throat, resulting in severe oesophageal burns. It has been estimated that 20 children are hospitalised each week from swallowing button batteries. The harm they cause can be long term, sometimes lasting the course of a lifetime. In some tragic and regrettable cases, it has even resulted in death.

Section 104(1) in part 3-3 of schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 empowers the minister, through a simple declaratory instrument, to declare a mandatory safety standard for a consumer product. But, in this case, the minister has declined to do so. Instead, in a move that brings us back to an episode of The Hollowmen, we seem to have a voluntary code of conduct only, instead of a declaratory instrument with a public awareness campaign to follow it.

As a general proposition, it is reasonable to suggest that rules exist less to define the good but rather to regulate the behaviour of the bad. The risk of a voluntary industry code is that only those businesses who adopt a best-practice approach will implement it. There is no doubt that some businesses are already doing so. The concern we have is that there is nothing within the context of a voluntary code of practice to necessarily deter those cowboys from doing the wrong thing.

My questions to the minister are as follows. When was the minister first aware of the issue of deleterious effects to health and safety in relation to button batteries, and why did the minister decline to declare a mandatory safety standard for button batteries and the products that contain them? Minister, did any representations made by companies that make and sell button batteries and products that contain them have any bearing on your decision not to implement a declaratory instrument? Given the harm caused by button batteries to our nation's toddlers—that is continuing to be caused—is the minister monitoring rates of hospitalisation caused by these harmful batteries, and will the minister implement a mandatory safety standard for button batteries and products that contain them if the voluntary code fails to arrest the harm?

We all know that our children are precious, and as we go into this Christmas season one child who is in hospital as a result of ingesting a button battery is one child too many. A mandatory code of conduct will not be sufficient to deter those who put children at risk. Will the minister undertake to implement a mandatory safety standard for button batteries if the voluntary code fails to arrest the harm and the injuries continuing?

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