Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Disability and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

The Imported Food Control Amendment Bill 2017 makes changes to strengthen Australia's current risk based management approach of imported food to better protect the health of consumers. Labor supports the bill because it recognises that while Australia has a robust imported food safety system it can always be improved and strengthened, especially as Australia imports greater amounts from other countries through our bilateral trade agreements. In 2015-16 Australia imported $16 billion worth of food.

This bill amends, as I have said, the Imported Food Control Act 1992 to strengthen the current risk based management approach to imported food safety to better protect the health of consumers. The bill will require documentary evidence from importers to demonstrate that they have effective, internationally recognised food safety controls in place throughout their supply chains for the types of food where at-border testing alone is insufficient to provide assurance of food safety. It will broaden Australia's emergency powers to allow food to be held at the border where there is uncertainty about the safety of particular food and where the scientific approach to verify its safety is not established. It will provide additional powers to monitor and manage new and emerging risks. It will recognise an entire foreign country's food safety regulatory system where it is equivalent to Australia's food safety system, which will facilitate less intervention at the border for food products from that country. It will align the definition of 'food' with other Commonwealth legislation. It will establish differentiated enforcement provisions to establish a graduated approach to noncompliance. It will require all importers of food to be able to trace food one step forward and one step backwards. It will address minor technical issues with the current legislation to ensure efficient administration of the imported food legislation. The bill will also reduce the regulatory burden for compliant food importers.

Food-borne illnesses are serious and have major consequences when outbreaks occur. In 2010, it was estimated that there were 4.1 million episodes of food-borne gastrointestinal illness in Australia and 86 related deaths. The regulatory impact study states that in 2010 it was estimated that 4.1 million episodes of food illness in Australia were advised of. The recent food safety issues with imported foods, such as the outbreak of hepatitis A associated with imported frozen berries in 2015, exposed limitations in Australia's import food safety management system. The outbreak of hepatitis A occurred in 2015; unfortunately, it has taken the government almost two years to introduce measures to strengthen Australia's food safety management system. The RIS also states that the department proposed a package of legislative and non-legislative reforms to better align the imported food inspection program with contemporary and preventive risk-managed approaches. The policy objective was to strengthen the current system to provide more flexible and targeted ways to prevent and respond to food safety risks, to better protect the health of consumers by reducing the regulatory burden for compliant food importers and to uphold our international obligations.

The economic costs of food-borne illnesses in Australia are substantial, with doctor visits, treatments and days off work reported to cost $1.2 billion per year. The public expect that, when food-borne illnesses occur, there are systems in place to deal with the suspected source as soon as possible, and this includes possibly contaminated imported food. The outbreak, as I mentioned before, of hepatitis A in 2015 that was linked to imported frozen berries exposed limitations in the current imported food system. Back then, it was under the Abbott-Truss government, but now the former Minister for Agriculture, true to form, has taken aim at the importing country and turned his attention to country-of-origin labelling rather than investigating if there is a way of strengthening Australia's imported food regulatory system. On 18 February 2015 Mr Joyce said that he believed there should be clear country-of-origin labelling on all imported foods so that consumers knew exactly where the products were coming from. He said there was a review currently underway and he would be pushing for proper labelling to be implemented 'as quickly as possible'. Minister Joyce said:

We should have proper country of origin labelling. Maybe other countries are not as concerned about food safety as we are.

Mr Joyce urged Australians to seek out locally made products:

Buy Australian and save yourself a pain in the gut.

Minister Joyce should have checked his facts because the packages relating to the suspected contaminated frozen berries were clearly labelled with the country of origin. Minister Joyce went further, claiming that labels were needed that clearly identify 'unambiguously, as soon as you pick up a package, whether it is from our country with our strong ... sanitary requirements'. He further said, 'that is making sure that faecal contamination, which is a very polite word for poo, is not anywhere near your food—not going to be put in your mouth'. This was an outrageous statement by the minister.

Sadly, rather than pushing to strengthen our imported food regulatory systems back in 2015, Minister Joyce chose to criticise our trading partners. Amendments to this bill should have been made in 2015. In regard to the new country-of-origin labelling, recent media articles are claiming that small Australian agrifood businesses such as Brookfarm Muesli in Byron Bay will have to redesign their packaging, with Brookfarm Muesli estimating it will cost $500,000 to redesign their 70 different packages. Further, health experts from Monash University are claiming that the new labels were not giving consumers the information they really wanted—that it doesn't actually tell us where our food comes from. We really don't need Monash University to tell us that, because anyone who spends any time in supermarkets would know that. What it does tell us is that food is from Australia, and then it leaves you to guess where the rest of the ingredients are from, unless the product is totally from another country, in which case it is labelled as coming from that country. This was the case with the suspected contaminated berries. So, while the new country-of-origin labelling does nothing to strengthen Australia's imported food system, the amendments to this bill will do that.

The Labor Party will be supporting this bill, as we see it as strengthening the current risk based management approach of imported food safety to better protect the health of consumers.