Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a matter that has been the subject of much public debate and public disquiet for some years, including in recent years strong commentary from the Productivity Commission. Put simply, Australian consumers have a right to know where the products they purchase come from and what is in them. In other words, people want clear, easy to read and easy to understand labelling laws. That is even more the case in relation to food products, where the current labelling laws are anything but clear. I accept that this is a complex issue, given the range of matters that labels are expected to provide information about, including nutritional information, use-by dates, health warnings, trans-fatty acid content, allergen information, daily intake guides, and the source country of products or ingredients. However, I believe we can do better and the Australian people I speak to expect more clarity.

At present we have a situation where, at federal level, both the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the minister for health have an interest in different aspects of food importation but where the responsibility for regulation and enforcement of the standard falls to the states. To further complicate the onus of responsibility, the Australian Made logo and the similar trademarks used are administered by a non-government organisation. But the confusion does not stop there. For consumers, terms such as ‘product of Australia’, ‘Australian made’, and ‘Australian grown’ all have a level of haziness or ambiguity about their meaning. Australian branding of products has significant market appeal, a fact well understood by product manufacturers and so, not surprisingly, there is considerable resistance to providing clarity as to product labelling by some sectors of the community. On the significance of the Australian-made brand, if I may refer to it in that context, I note that last year, at a time of global economic recession, some 79 per cent of our food exporters—people who were exporting Australian-made products—either still experienced an increase in their sales or at least maintained sales equivalent to those of the previous year. That says a lot about Australian products at a time when the market has constricted and that certainly highlights and proves the point that Australian products are in demand both here in Australia and overseas.

With respect to food products, consumers not only have the right to know product origin and content, but they often need to know for health related reasons. They need to know exactly what is in food because, depending on what is in the food that they are consuming, it may or may not have serious health implications for them, and that is why it is absolutely critical that they know. There are no international standards with respect to food production and preparation. Food produced outside of Australia is not produced to the same standards as that produced in Australia. I do not for one minute suggest that everything produced in Australia is absolutely perfect. But I do suggest that in Australia we produce food to a much more acceptable level of standard than many of the products that we import from overseas countries. For example, we do not know what chemicals have been used in foods that are produced overseas or what hygiene standards have been used in the manufacture of food that comes in from overseas, and therefore we do not know what the health risks associated with that food are.

In 2007-08 Australia imported $9 billion of food products. That was a 10 per cent growth from the previous year, and it is a growing industry. In some cases these were foods that were not produced at all in Australia and did not compete for market share with Australian products. I accept that. But in many other cases they were marketed in direct competition with Australian produce, in turn placing Australia’s farming, agricultural and horticultural sectors under even more pressure than they are currently facing as a result of drought, floods, other extreme weather events and the global economic recession. They also faced a problem with a monopolised market.

I welcome the announcement last Friday by the Parliamentary Secretary for Health that Dr Neal Blewett has been appointed to oversee a review of Australian food-labelling laws in this country. I welcome that review and I appreciate the terms of reference that have been attached to it. I urge the review panel to deal with this issue as a matter of urgency, and I certainly look forward to the review panel’s recommendations.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the member for Makin in bringing this resolution to the attention of the parliament. I have been in this place a long time and was raising issues in the early nineties about truth in labelling. I remember what was probably my first question in the early nineties to the then Minister for Consumer Affairs, the Hon. Jeannette McHugh, in the Keating government. She instituted some processes to put clarity into ‘Made in Australia’. But what I want to offer tonight is a slightly different tack to that of the member for Makin. His resolution is about health concerns, and I support that. My concern, representing food producers, is to engage in activities that encourage Australians to do what they want to do. Consumers have indicated that they want to support Australian products, because they are aware that this is supporting employment in Australian jobs. They are very loyal. In fact, it is quite a barbecue stopper for someone to pick up the sauce bottle or the orange juice at a barbecue and make some comment about where it came from or where it was made. The point I would like to make is that we already have tools in place to address this. The Hon. Warren Truss was the minister in the Howard government who introduced and reinforced the concept of ‘Product of Australia’.

I have brought along some products tonight, and I hope I have the indulgence of members in the House, and your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, to use these props. It is a pity the standing orders do not allow for it. The point I want to make is just how confusing it is for consumers. These products have been provided to me by food producers in my electorate. Here is a product: it is breakfast cereal.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just remind the member that we are not allowed to use props, and I will stick with the rulings of other speakers and deputy speakers on this.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will simply make reference to them then. This is the product of an Australian company, and yet it does not have ‘Product of Australia’ on it. It does have the symbol for ‘Made in Australia’ with the flying kangaroo. Here is a sugar product from a famous sugar company which everybody would assume was Australian but which does not have ‘Product of Australia’ on it. That means it must have some level of imported product in it.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will ask the member once again not to use the props, please.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a great shame, because all I am trying to demonstrate is how confusing it is for consumers when they are in the supermarket and in a hurry. They are probably driven by the final bill for the product, but they still want to support Australian-made products.

I believe we have the legislative tools to deal with this. We have ‘Product of Australia’ and ‘produce of Australia’, and wherever there is a label that does not have that on it, consumers can guarantee that it is not Australian, or that it has some imported ingredient—even Vegemite. I often enjoy, when I have international visitors, coming home to put Vegemite on the toast and introduce them to Vegemite, a purely Australian product. And yet it does not have—and they are not by law allowed to put—‘produce of Australia’ on it because they have to rely on some imported ingredients. The tools are there to have absolute truth.

I would like to see the member for Makin encourage his government to put some effort into this, to educate those Australian consumers who want to support Australian producers, particularly of food, so that they understand what that label ‘Product of Australia’ or ‘produce of Australia’ means. Take an Australian wine bottle which has ‘produce of Australia’ on it. They can be guaranteed 100 per cent that all ingredients are made within Australia. Obviously the producers of these products are aware of Australian loyalty; they will go to great lengths to say that the company is owned in Australia. They will put labels on it to say, ‘Made in Australia’ but ‘from imported ingredients’. The power is with the people. We need to have them educated to the point where they understand clearly what ‘Product of Australia’ really means, so that they will support it. If we can achieve that, the packagers and processors of the food will put ‘Product of Australia’ as high as they possibly can, subject to the limits of their products’ packaging. I have even got a sample of Castlemaine rock, which comes not from my electorate but from the electorate of the member for Bendigo. It proudly has ‘Product of Australia’ printed on it in very large letters. Australians know that they can buy that confidently, knowing that they are 100 per cent supporting Australian jobs. They are not confused. As the member for Makin made the point, there is a proliferation of— (Time expired)

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I firstly want to thank the member for Makin for moving tonight’s motion on food labelling standards. It is an exceptionally important area of legislation, and a lot of good can be done in a community sense by getting these sorts of frameworks right. I commend the member for putting this forward. I note for the record that I have spoken on these types of issues—such as food labelling and other standards, as well as genetically modified foods and other products—on a number of occasions over many years. I have a very real interest in these things, mainly because they are issues of consumer protection, consumer rights and the ability of people to make free and fully informed decisions about the types of products they consume. Getting that framework right is about getting labelling right in more than one area, so I again congratulate the member for Makin for tonight’s motion on these particular standards.

Of course, food labelling is not just about what is contained within a food product itself but also about how much you pay for it, what its value is, what its weight is, the additives that are contained in it and a whole range of issues that affect us today more than they ever have in the past, because of the complex nature of and the variety of ways in which foods are brought to our table. It is exceptionally complex for interested people, let alone intelligent people, to decipher or make sense of what a food label actually tells you. This is so for anyone who is in the practice of reading them, and I hope that most people are; I know I am. I still do the shopping. I still think I am reasonably well grounded. I can tell you the price of a loaf of bread in any range, colour or size—or, for that matter, of the 368 different types of milk containers that are on the market.

The reality is that it is important to know not only what is in a product but how it compares to other food products on the shelves. The basis of all of this comes back to the standard of our food labelling and how that works for ordinary people, because the labelling itself is what people use to understand what it is they buy. Having that right is critically important, and, while I think we have certainly come a long way and that food labelling is better than it was at times in the past, it still has room for improvement. This government has certainly been very active in making sure that we get these things correct for consumers, and I note the good work that Minister Bowen has done in terms of unit pricing and the importance that plays. I am a beneficiary of some of that, because when I go shopping with my family I always explain to my kids that they should look at what they are purchasing, look at the label, understand where their money is going and understand how much it is per unit or per hundred grams or how many you actually get in a packet.

I do that so that, when they buy something off a shelf, they actually understand what they are purchasing—what is inside that package or can. And I have to say that these days I find myself buying fewer and fewer things that are contained in a packet or in a can. I am not passing a particular judgment, as I think that some food products that come in a can are quite healthy and quite good. And if the labelling is right then I think it is quite okay. But, generally speaking, it would be better, and it would help our farmers, if people bought fresh produce. The more people make a conscious choice to buy from the butcher, from the baker, from the farmers’ market, from the smaller grocery store, from the fresh food store and from the fruit and vegetable outlet, the more opportunity they have to be in touch with what they are purchasing and probably the less labelling they will need. If you are buying fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, or meat from your butcher, you do not need as much labelling, because you know that not much else has gone into it, apart from the product you are actually purchasing. I would encourage consumers to take more of that approach.

But in the absence of that I understand the time or location difficulties there are for people. They find themselves spending all of their food dollars at a particular store. I am not going to mention any in this place. The only weapon they have to arm themselves with to make a clear and conscious choice is decent product labelling. I commend any work that this government is doing and has done and any work that has been done previously to ensure that consumers know what they are buying, what they are paying for and what impact it may have on their health and that of their families.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion and to thank the member for Makin for putting it forward. It is a line of inquiry that I am also pursuing through some of my parliamentary committees to try to encourage them to do work in this area. In particular I am interested in imported foodstuffs and the people’s ability to make informed choices about their shopping practices. Australia has a reputation for producing some of the cleanest, freshest and safest food in the world; however, with many major food products we no longer have the cheapest. That is not to say that, if all foods in the Australian market had to be produced in the same safe, quality assured manner using our minimum standards, our industries would not be competitive.

I recently obtained an AQIS list of foodstuffs imported from China in the last six months. It is sobering reading—over 5,000 different items: thousands of tonnes of prawns, nuts, meats, shellfish, prepared foods, sauces and vegetables. The list goes on and on. I doubt we have any real idea how most of the food was produced, under what levels of hygiene it was produced and packed and what the quality of the water it was grown in and the chemicals which were used to grow it were. Are those chemicals banned in Australia? Of course, it is not just China; there are fish from Vietnam and Thailand and even food from India. Products are pouring in from all over the world.

Just last week we heard that we will now allow the importation of beef from countries with mad cow disease. If you gave the public adequate information on this product—for example, ‘This beef has been imported from a country with mad cow disease’—I would suggest that sales might be a little sluggish! But you can be sure that that sign will not be appearing on the product. Our beef industry is a multimillion-dollar export earner for Australia, and can we be sure there are no biosecurity risks and, even more importantly, no public health risks? I have been to Vietnam, and a wonderful, beautiful and industrious country it is, even as it deals with some difficulties in governance. But, although only a casual observer at the time, I could not help observing the conditions of the prawn farms. I allege they would be highly unlikely to pass Australian health tests. In fact, large tonnage of catfish is imported into Australia under another name. My understanding of catfish is that they dwell in the dirtiest of water and consume the filthiest of foods, but the Australian population lives largely in blissful ignorance of all this.

I am in favour of free and fair trade; however, production not meeting the conditions our locals producers must, is not fair on either the growers or the consumers. We turn our memory to the recent melamine scandal coming out of China. Are we convinced that our imported processed food from that nation is free of that contaminant? I understand part of China’s crackdown on this practice has involved lifting the maximum allowable standard of melamine in the product. So where are the safeguards? Unfortunately, they are difficult to find. Supposedly we are protected by AQIS, the very same organisation the government is planning to withdraw $40 million from. That is 40 per cent of their budget. And then we expect them to protect us! It is impossible not to think that in that event there may be shortcuts.

We should have a full understanding of where our food comes from. Even though there have been reforms in labelling over the years, I am far from convinced the public understands the messages in the labelling. We can have education programs encouraging people to read and understand the labels, but at the heart of the problem is that the public trusts the government and its institutions to guard them from poor standards. I am far from convinced that, as this explosion of imported food threatens to bury the cleanest, freshest food industry in the world, we are being properly protected. I support this private members’ motion and thank the member for presenting it. I support it because it does address some of the issues I have raised, supplying better information to the public. I suspect, though, we will have to do much more than just this to address many of those issues.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise in support of the motion of the member for Makin and am in agreeance with most of what has been said by previous speakers. This is an extremely important motion and it is very important for the consumers of Australia. Consumers throughout the nation desire best practice when it comes to food labelling. Consumers have every right to know exactly where their product was grown, where it was produced and what effects it might have on them. More informative labelling is continually desired by consumers and has been progressed over time through the Food Standards Code, the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council and Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Historical advances have been made in some regulations, with ‘made in’ becoming ‘manufactured in’, and ‘produce of’ requiring a minimum 50 per cent of the cost of the production to be in a certain area.

Consumers, as I said, want to know where products come from. They have a desire to buy Australian products. There was a very good point made earlier by a previous speaker, the member for Mallee, that certain products are labelled ‘made in Australia’ or ‘produce of Australia’ but that that is not necessarily the case with some other products because of the 50 per cent production rule that we have. So country of origin is extremely important as well. Recently I received some calls from constituents that had dentures that were made in China. After they had been made and fitted, they discovered that these dentures had been made in China at approximately $150 total cost, yet they were still charged what we would charge here for dentures, which was in the thousands.

As I said, the quality of mass produced food products is being investigated currently within the context of general human health, development and function, and food benefits are also something that people want to know about. The former health minister Dr Blewett has been appointed as chair of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council. It determined at its 12th meeting about a year ago to undertake a comprehensive review of food labelling law and policy, and the terms of reference have now been agreed to and released. I wish him the wisdom of Solomon and hope for the successful completion of the task.

In the past, we have seen many cases of products that have come from countries that do not have the same stringent laws that we do. Australia is right up there on a pedestal when it comes to our produce. We have a name on the international markets for good, clean produce, and it is very important that we maintain the good name that we have internationally for our food exports and for our farmers. As I said, most consumers want to know where their product comes from. If we can make labelling simpler and easier for people to read—with the facts—we will find that more Australians will prefer buying Australian made products.

Recently I was on an inquiry into obesity, and people submitted to the inquiry that labelling was very confusing. People told us that they wanted to know what is in products but found labelling extremely confusing, with low sugars, high sugars, sucrose et cetera. Everyone was telling us that they wanted something simpler to read, something understandable and something that will tell them what is in the product, where the product comes from and any dangers that might be in the product. There is an emerging desire here and around the world for environmental labelling as well. It is a new factor in assessing food products which is coming over the horizon. For example, ‘water footprint’ measures the volume of water used in the production of the food, whether it be cheese, beef, coffee or whatever. These are things that are emerging and that we want to see in labelling. (Time expired)

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the question of food labelling, questions on notice from the Senate agriculture committee budget estimates reveal that hundreds of jobs are being lost because of the failure of the current Rudd government to deliver on its promise to clarify country of origin labelling requirements. The figures show that in just a three-month period Australia imported over 290,000 kilograms of home brand peanut butter, peanuts and beer nuts from China. All up, from February to May 2009, 994,635—almost a million—kilograms of nuts, mostly peanuts and peanut butter, were imported from China alone. In the same period, almost half a million kilograms—454,706 kilograms—of prawns and shrimp were imported from China. I find it incredible that Australia, the home of Kingaroy, cannot produce its own peanut butter.

A recent media report stated that food imports will reach a record $8.5 billion in 2008-09, raising fears that Australia is sacrificing economic growth, jobs and food security and threatening food safety. The food industry fears that as consumers buy more home brand products the level of imports will continue to rise. Fruit and vegetables top the list of import categories at $1.7 billion in 2008-09, followed by seafood at $1.3 billion; coffee, tea, cocoa and spices at $1.2 billion; cereals at $800 million; dairy at $600 million; and meat at $575 million. Australia’s food-manufacturing sector was the largest manufacturing sector left in Australia, employing over a quarter of a million people, over half of whom are based in regional areas. Without support, there is a danger of their jobs going the same way as our clothing and manufacturing sector.

The Rudd government promised to end the confusion surrounding food labelling by clarifying country of origin labelling requirements. The Labor Party’s pre-election policy stated:

A Rudd Labor Government will simplify and strengthen food labelling laws. This will include:

• A new ‘Grown in Australia’ label under the Trade Practices Act for products that are not only made in Australia, but also grown in Australia.
• Working with the organic food sector to develop a National Standard for Organic Produce with an agreed labelling and certification system for Australian produce.
• Consideration of amendments to the Food Standards Code to clarify country of origin labelling requirements.
• Strengthening compliance arrangements.

It is a disgrace that in the midst of the financial crisis this government has racked up billions of dollars of debt stimulating the economy but Australians still do not have a clue about where their food is being grown and manufactured. The failure of the Rudd government and the Labor Party to deliver on their pre-election promises is becoming more apparent by the day.

You only have to look at Coles and Woolworths. We all know how they will only buy Australian! They will only buy from where they will make their best quid; don’t worry about that. Let me tell you something. If the ETS and CPRS legislation moved in the House today comes into force, it will make our food even less competitive against the Chinese produce, for example, that Coles and Woolworths are increasingly using to stock their shelves. So I think this issue of food labelling is extraordinarily important, and we should be looking at it from the point of view of where the produce concerned is grown, not so much where it is labelled. Assuming it is done under proper circumstances, the issue is where it is grown. We all know how certain companies can use the laws to say it was packaged here or had Australian content because it was put together here, but the real issue is: where the heck was it grown? I believe that, until we get laws that reflect whether it was grown or produced in Australia rather than where it was packaged, canned or processed, we are always going to have this problem and we are always going to have Australian consumers who are subject to selling by stealth, as it were.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.