Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Amendment (Forum on Food Regulation and Other Measures) Bill 2015. This bill makes a number of amendments to the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act of 1991. The FSANZ Act is the act enabling Food Standards Australia New Zealand—more commonly known as FSANZ—the body which develops the food standards code.

The frozen berries incident last year showed just how important strong food regulation is for all Australians. Last year dozens of Australians became ill from hepatitis A from frozen berries that were imported into Australia. It was FSANZ that was responsible for providing advice on the risks to the department of agriculture. We have a quite complex process for regulating our food standards, with an interaction between FSANZ and the department of agriculture. We heard evidence in Senate estimates of the delays in FSANZ providing the risk analysis and how in turn this slowed down crucial work by the department of agriculture.

Australians deserve strong protection on food. While we do have some strong standards, there are still some holes in our process, which was demonstrated very clearly last year during the frozen berries incident. When you pick up a packet of frozen berries, or any other food for that matter, at the supermarket you should not have to worry about whether you might be getting hepatitis A. Australians reacted at that time very strongly and indicated very strongly that they expect very strong standards. That is why strong food regulation is important and that is why we need to make sure that there is strong scrutiny of changes that are made to any of our processes, and that applies to this bill, just as it does to any other bill.

These changes need to be in the best interests of our community. We have some concerns with this bill because we do not think the changes are in the best interests of our community. This bill makes a number of minor administrative changes to the FSANZ Act and those are changes we could support. I will go into some of our concerns in a minute. I will just deal with the minor ones now. The Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation has changed its name to the Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation. It makes sense to reflect that change in the FSANZ Act, and we of course can support that. However, there are several changes that are not quite so simple. The first of these is the balance of the FSANZ board between industry and consumers. This is a very important issue. There are already many in our community who think there is already too much industry influence on FSANZ and on our food regulation process and our standard-setting process. This bill clearly takes, we believe, a step too far.

The Senate had a long debate about the original bill establishing the FSANZ part of the process. Part of that debate was about what was the right balance on the board, making sure that it was not too strongly influenced by industry and that there was a voice for consumers and independent scientific experts. The food industry should not set its own regulations. As Senator Bob Brown said during the debate:

We are particularly concerned that the legislation be at arms-length from the industry that profits from the development and sale of food to the Australian and New Zealand communities.

That bill was amended in the Senate to make sure that the balance of the board was right and that it was not dominated by industry representatives. That was an appropriate amendment and an important one. It shows the important work, in fact, that we do in this place—making sure that legislation passed by the parliament is in the best interests of the Australian community.

The amendments in this bill will change the balance of the FSANZ board. This is for us an extremely important issue and one that we are concerned about. Under the current provisions in the FSANZ Act the board has 12 members. They include the chair, the Chief Executive Officer of FSANZ, three members nominated by the New Zealand minister, one member nominated by consumer organisations, one member nominated by the CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council, three members nominated by science and public health entities and two from food industry entities. The bill introduces several changes to the balance on the FSANZ board and this is causing us and stakeholders who have contacted us a lot of concern.

The government's rationale is that these changes are responsive to a review of the FSANZ board appointment process. That report is not publicly available and until late last year we had no way of knowing if the bill really matched the recommendations in that report. However, I do want to thank the Minister for Rural Health, as her office provided an extract of that report to my office. As I understand it, the same extract was provided to the ALP. We have not had access to the full material in the review of the board but we have the recommendation about increasing flexibility in board appointments. While we can in principle support the issue of flexibility where it is useful for a particular process, there is a trade-off—and this is an important one. Where we have increased flexibility it is important to make sure that we do not lose sight of what is important. In this case we believe we would.

In this case what is important is making sure that FSANZ regulates the food industry in the best interests of the Australian and New Zealand communities and of Australian and New Zealand consumers. We believe that means that the composition of the FSANZ board needs to reflect that. It should be balanced and, more importantly, it should ensure that there is strong representation for consumers and for independent scientific experts. It is important that industry representatives not outweigh other voices on the board. As I said, there are already many stakeholders who believe that industry already has too much influence in this process.

The bill makes a number of changes to the composition of the board. The current act specifies a minimum requirement of four individuals nominated by science and public health organisations, two industry representatives and one person from a consumer organisation. It is true that under the bill's proposed section 116A there would be more flexibility for the minister in appointing members of the board. However, that carries with it a risk.

Under the proposed structure there would only be a minimum of two science and public health board members. This would remove the board member nominated by the National Health and Medical Research Council. It would also lower the minimum number of independent experts that need to be on the board. It could mean that there would be only two scientific experts appointed, which is down from the current minimum of four. We are talking about long-term, so with all the best will in the world the current minister could do the right thing. But into the future there is no guarantee that the minister would not increase the number of food industry representatives. In fact, the number could double from two to four. We oppose this change in the balance of FSANZ and we want to ensure the current balance.

We have amendments that are, I think, identical to the ALP amendments. We have amendments to this bill and we will be opposing this bill if these changes are not made. We have other amendments that I will go into in a minute, but we feel very strongly about this. It is critical to our ongoing process to ensure that we maintain the best standards possible in this country, so we will not be supporting this bill if our amendments are not successful.

I also want to speak to a second point about referrals to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator. This is an important procedural issue and it has important implications. The government's bill would amend the definition of appropriate government agency in the act and as part of that it would remove the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator from that list. As a submission by the Department of Health explains:

The FSANZ Act requires FSANZ to notify appropriate government agencies about various matters related to the making, reviewing and varying of food regulatory measures, such as food standards.

By removing the GTR from the list of appropriate government agencies, FSANZ would no longer be required to notify government agencies. The rationale is to provide FSANZ with more flexibility in its processes—and I bet that is just what they are like. However, in relation to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator, section 19 of the FSANZ Act currently provides FSANZ with the flexibility it needs. Section 19 of the FSANZ Act says that where FSANZ is required to give a notice to the GTR, FSANZ is only required to give the notice if the food regulatory measure relates to the measure that is or contains a GMO or GM product. However, as the submission by the Department of Health says, after the bill's amendments:

FSANZ would have to notify the GTR where FSANZ considers that the GTR has a particular interest in the relevant matter, for example, where the application or proposal relates to genetically modified food.

This means that FSANZ would still have basically the same requirements whether or not the GTR is included.

However, if the GTR is removed from the list of appropriate government agencies then a consequence is that GMO, and the GMO product, will no longer be defined in the FSANZ Act. There are a number of submissions to the committee that were concerned about this particular aspect of the bill. We understand from these submissions that once the definition is removed then a narrow definition in the Food Standards Code will apply. This narrow definition will not capture the new types of GM technology.

We believe in a strong science based approach to regulation that protects human health. Because of that, it is important to have a definition that is broad enough to capture new changes in technology. In particular, if there are any challenges to the Food Standards Code then it will be important to have an appropriate definition in the act. That is why we do not support removing the Gene Technology Regulator from the list of appropriate government agencies. Our amendment keeps the Gene Technology Regulator as an appropriate government agency. FSANZ will still have the appropriate flexibility under section 19 of the act. This will also retain a definition for GM products and GMO in the FSANZ Act.

There is another change in this bill which gives FSANZ more flexibility in preparing regulatory impact statements. Currently, the FSANZ Act requires FSANZ to prepare a regulatory impact statement when a number of changes are made. A regulatory impact statement can often be a very useful document. It can provide a clear idea of what the different policy options are and how the change in policy will impact different groups. In some cases it is the clearest analysis of a policy that the government publishes. The bill lowers the threshold for when a regulatory impact statement—commonly known as a RIS—is required; specifying that FSANZ must include one 'if appropriate'. However, it is not clear what 'if appropriate' means. In other words, they can pick and choose when they do it, whether FSANZ can decide or if there is a guideline.

Both the Public Health Association of Australia and the Australian Food and Grocery Council noted concerns in relation to this change. It is important to recognise that this change takes place in a larger context. This is a government that has in a number of ways, and in multiple areas, been avoiding transparency. When I asked for a copy of the regulatory impact statement for another measure—the so-called cashless welfare card—I was told that it was not available because it was a cabinet-in-confidence document. But previous governments have regularly published regulatory impact statements, or RISs, often in the explanatory memorandums.

We see a similar pattern in other areas. This government has tightened the responses to freedom of information requests. For example, it has tightened controls on what public servants are allowed to say on social media. And the government has taken even more information out of the budget papers than previous governments have. Is this part of a pattern that the government is trying to establish by lowering this threshold or is it just trying to make things easier for FSANZ?

RISs are important documents. These are important changes. They will potentially have significant impacts on the way our food protection system in this country works. I have amendments around these issues in terms of the regulation impact statement and dealing with notifications of appropriate government agencies. We want to see stronger requirements in the FSANZ Act to make sure that there is appropriate analysis when FSANZ makes changes to regulation.

We are particularly concerned about the board changes, about the changes that particularly relate to how GMOs are potentially assessed and about the regulation impact statements. We have amendments on these three key areas. We believe they would improve the bill and address a number of concerns that were raised in submissions to the inquiry. Previous Senate debates and amendments have improved FSANZ legislation. We think these amendments would do the same thing.

While we support some of the minor administration changes, we cannot support this bill if our amendments are not supported, because we think the changes the government wants will undermine our food standard process in Australia, when Australians clearly want strong food regulation in this country. We know the risks if we do not have strong food protections. We are deeply concerned that, even if the minister in her response and her wrapping up of the second reading debate on this bill makes commitments that in fact industry would not get control, she cannot bind future governments. There is a risk here that is not worth taking. We will be strongly debating the issue around this board and, as I said, we will not support this legislation unless our amendments get up. Unfortunately, I cannot commend this bill to the chamber, because there are issues that need addressing.