Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Inventory) Bill 2011, which amends the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989. This act originally established a notification and assessment scheme on a national system for the regulation of industrial chemicals. It was designed to provide protection for people's health and safety when dealing with these chemicals and provide for registration when people propose to introduce industrial chemicals. The act is administered by the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, or NICNAS. The bill before us makes two main amendments to the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989. The first is to allow for a mechanism to transfer chemicals from one government regulatory agency to NICNAS. The second set of amendments are designed to improve the efficiency of the scheme's internal processes. I would like to briefly cover these in a little more detail.

The main amendment contained within the bill before us will create a mechanism to transfer the chemicals from regulation under one government agency to the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances under the management of NICNAS. It will achieve this by allowing the director of NICNAS to add to the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances chemicals which have been transferred to the industrial chemicals framework from other Commonwealth regulatory schemes. Currently, in the absence of this transfer mechanism, introducers of chemicals to the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances which were previously regulated under other Commonwealth regulatory schemes have been forced to meet the requirements of the framework and the associated notification and assessment costs. This amendment will remove this extra burden created by the government decision to transfer regulation of certain chemicals from one regulatory framework to NICNAS.

The second amendment formalises the notification and assessment arrangements for UV filters in secondary sunscreen products. These arrangements have been in place since October 2008 and these amendments just formalise that process. When cosmetics were transferred from the TGA to NICNAS in 2007, it was agreed that the data requirements under the TGA relating to UV products be maintained. This bill updates the NICNAS schedule to this act to cater for the additional data requirements relating to UV products.

The third and more technical amendment contained within this bill removes the requirement for NICNAS to publish summary assessment reports. Summary assessment reports were originally used when the full chemical assessment reports were not publicly available unless they were purchased in hard copy. The summary assessment reports provided a summary of the report and were available free of charge. The full NICNAS assessment reports are now freely available on the internet, making the need for summary reports obsolete. Removing the requirements for NICNAS to duplicate reports should increase the efficiencies of the scheme.

It is a rare thing to see the government decreasing the regulatory burden on business and industry, and making their departments smaller and more efficient, but this bill seems to do exactly that: it decreases the regulatory burden while increasing the efficiency of the scheme. For this reason, the coalition will be supporting this bill through the parliament. I can only hope that we start to see more reductions in red tape from the government.

Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Inventory) Bill 2011. The bill amends the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989, which established a national system of notification and assessment of industrial chemicals used in Australia. The National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme administer the act, and the activities of NICNAS underpin essential advice to other government agencies which make up Australia's regulatory system for industrial chemicals. The bill underpins the completion of the cosmetic regulatory reforms which were largely implemented in 2007. It completes the reforms to the cosmetic therapeutic interface and it puts in place significant technical changes to enhance the administration and efficiency of the industrial chemical scheme's assessment processes.

In 2007, to facilitate the transfer regulatory responsibility for certain low-risk cosmetic products from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to NICNAS, the NICNAS cosmetics standard was introduced. The standard enables NICNAS to set standards for certain cosmetics and impose penalties for noncompliance. However, a mechanism to transfer the chemicals in these cosmetic products from the TGA to the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances was not developed. This bill establishes that mechanism, allowing the transfer of these chemicals to AICS as well as enabling NICNAS to legally impose the same controls that had previously been applied by the TGA. The transfer process will be open and transparent, with any proposal to transfer a chemical onto the inventory being published by the director of NICNAS, with this also open to review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In the absence of any transfer mechanisms some introducers of chemicals have had to meet the more stringent requirements of the new chemicals framework with the associated notification and assessment costs or reporting obligations.

The bill also includes technical amendments to the act in relation to NICNAS's assessment processes. The act currently requires the director of NICNAS to prepare and publish separate summary reports for all of the organisation's chemical assessment reports. This practice was introduced at a time when the full assessment report had to be purchased and was only available in paper form. However, NICNAS now publishes the full public report on its website for all interested parties to download free of charge. To facilitate public access to these reports, NICNAS will also publish a short notice outlining the key content of new assessment reports in the Chemical Gazettewith a link to those reports. The bill also includes technical amendments to the act's schedule to improve the consistency of Australia's data requirements with other national and international assessment schemes, particularly those requirements that apply to UV filters in cosmetics.

The cosmetics reforms in 2007 included the transfer of regulatory responsibility for secondary sunscreen products which are applied to the skin—for example, moisturisers containing a sunscreening chemical. NICNAS has assessed the UV filter chemicals in these products by requesting on a case-by-case basis the additional data required for sunscreens under the TGA. The bill allows the more efficient collection of data by creating a new section in the schedule of data requirements, including requirements specific to UV filters. The intent of this amendment to the schedule is to formalise current arrangements and maintain a consistent approach to the assessment of these chemicals across regulatory schemes. The proposed amendments will not place any significant additional requirements on the industrial chemicals industry, contrary to the remarks of the previous speaker. The bill has been developed in consultation with stakeholders and as a result of the collaborative approach adopted by the government, industry and the community. The amendments enable NICNAS to regulate chemicals transferred from other agencies and to ensure consistent data requirements and administrative processes to provide a much more efficient process and maintain transparency.

These amendments deliver on the Gillard government's commitment to ensure the most efficient regulatory system is in place for industrial chemicals while maintaining existing levels of worker safety, public health and environmental standards. I commend the bill to the House.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the members for Boothby and La Trobe for their contribution to the debate on the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Inventory) Bill 2011. The bill does fulfil a range of government objectives by continuing to protect public health and the environment; by reducing the regulatory burden on industry; by providing more information on chemicals in use in Australia; and by maximising the efficient use of NICNAS resources. The bill enables finalisation of the government's reform of the regulation of cosmetics, thereby creating long-term, sustainable and competitive advantage for the cosmetics industry while ensuring the continued safeguarding of health, safety and the environment. While the ingredients in certain cosmetics transferred from the TGA have been regulated by NICNAS as industrial chemicals for some time, these ingredients have been regulated as new industrial chemicals with the attendant notification and assessment costs of reporting obligation. The bill makes the necessary changes to the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act to recognise these chemicals as existing chemicals through entry on the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances. These mechanisms will also provide a regulatory pathway for future reforms that involve the transfer of regulatory responsibility for chemicals to NICNAS should a need be demonstrated.

At the same time the amendments also address a public health gap for chemicals in transferred cosmetic products by ensuring that the previous TGA controls become conditions of use under the NICNAS inventory. Further safeguards are built into the transfer process, with the bill providing the director of NICNAS with the discretion not to place chemicals on the inventory should they pose an unreasonable risk. The transfer process will be open to public scrutiny and subject to review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Moreover, chemicals can only be transferred to the public section of the inventory and not the confidential section, further ensuring public scrutiny of the transfer process.

The bill will also formalise the application by NICNAS of the TGA's data requirements for UV filters in certain products transferred from the TGA—namely, in secondary sunscreening products such as moisturisers. The schedule of the act lists data requirements for new chemicals that must be provided by industry. However, UV filters have some additional data requirements that are not covered by requirements already in the act. NICNAS currently obtains this data through an existing power in the act which allows NICNAS to seek further data not in the schedule. The bill will create a new part in the schedule for these additional data requirements so that industry will know upfront the data required for the assessment of these particular chemicals. This will deliver greater efficiencies and certainty for industry, improve the utilisation of NICNAS resources, and maintain consistency of approach across regulatory schemes responsible for UV filters.

In addition to implementing cosmetics reforms, the second objective achieved by this bill is to make technical amendments to improve clarity and consistency within the act. These proposed amendments do not place any significant additional requirements on the industrial chemicals industry but instead provide some added efficiencies by clarifying NICNAS data requirements in accordance with international best practice.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the support of stakeholders for the proposed amendments and their ongoing cooperation and assistance in the development of this bill. As a result of the collaborative approach adopted between government, industry and the community, I believe we have been able to achieve a well-considered and appropriate piece of amending legislation. I also acknowledge the work of NICNAS staff and thank the opposition for their support on these bills. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.