Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon we are debating a very important piece of legislation, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Consumer Law—Country of Origin Representations) Bill 2020. Labor very much welcomes the legislation before us, but it is somewhat belated. This government has taken a belated path to ensuring that Australian vitamin manufacturers are able to say Australian Made on their labels. This has been a problem now for some time.

These are, indeed, Australian-made goods of high quality that Australians consume and enjoy, but they are also critically important in their export markets. It is unfortunate that these goods have been caught up in the difficulties with the 'substantive transformation' test. Despite the fact that these vitamins and therapeutic goods are registered as Australian-made, under the Therapeutic Goods Act they were found to be in breach of the technicalities of the meaning of 'substantial transformation' for use of the Australian Made logo. It's taken too long for the government to fix this issue. Australian manufacturers of vitamins and mineral supplements have had to remove the Australian Made logo from their products, and they've had to do this because of the government's incompetence. Labor called on the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews, to act on this issue—to stop an industry that's worth $5 billion to the Australian economy from being forced offshore and to stop it from having the 30,000 jobs within it put at risk.

The labels were removed in the middle of 2019 as a result of uncertainty about whether vitamin manufacturers could legally use the Australian Made logo due to country-of-origin labelling changes which saw the introduction of the 'substantial transformation' test. We know that the changes made to the country-of-origin laws inadvertently created a contradiction, where complementary medicine is deemed to be manufactured in Australia under one law—the Therapeutic Goods Act—but doesn't meet the criteria under another.

Complementary Medicines Australia have advised that unfortunately this issue has already affected about 200 Australian Made licences, and that any further delay would risk future investment. So it's terrific that the legislation is now—belatedly—before the chamber and being debated in this non-contro time slot. We that know many of the companies that have made these investments are here in Australia, including Sanofi's $40 million investment in their Brisbane manufacturing facility. Companies have made these incredibly large investments, and they've done that because Australia has a good reputation for manufacturing high-quality vitamins and it's also respected for its pharmaceuticals. That means household names like Blackmores, Swisse, Nature's Own and Cenovis are able to produce high-quality goods here and export to the world.

In submissions to the Complementary Medicine Taskforce, one local manufacture described clarity around country-of-origin labelling as being critical to their business. The potential loss of the made-in-Australia claim will have a direct and undermining effect on their marketing in China, while a third has said that they would think twice about introducing new products if they were not able to claim they were made in Australia. It is one of the few manufacturing industries in Australia that isn't in decline, and I'm sad to say that the government, in dragging its feet on this issue, has put the sector in jeopardy.

Australian consumers also like to know where their vitamins and goods that they buy from their local pharmacy are manufactured. Many have a preference for Australian manufactured vitamins because, like the Chinese market, we believe in the high quality and the high standards of the vitamin manufacturing industries here. We raised the issue in September 2018, and that was following calls from the manufacturing industry in federal Labor. Finally, the government amended regulations to allow affected companies to use the logo until the legislation was passed.

Today, the bill before us seeks to amend the Competition and Consumer Act. Here we are creating an explicit power to prescribe one or more processes which will be deemed to satisfy the definition of 'substantially transformed' for the purposes of the country-of-origin provisions of the act. This definition means that manufacturers can rely on safe-harbour provisions so they can make representations regarding the country of origin of their products without otherwise breaching other provisions of the act.

We certainly know that being made in Australia is a competitive advantage for this industry. We want to be proud and show consumers around the world that the Australian Made logo is a trusted consumer logo. We know that 30,000 jobs and a $5 billion industry were put at risk for every day this government delayed action on this issue.

Minister Karen Andrews made a promise right back on 5 April 2019. She promised to heed Labor's concerns and make regulatory changes to protect these manufacturers. The minister said to industry, 'Industry should be assured that I am doing all I can to assist.' It's been 510 days since that promise. In that time, the Australian government has hurt manufacturers, workers and consumers. These actions have put at risk this industry which supports close to 30,000 jobs.

The time that this has taken to drag on will impact on millions of dollars of export revenue due to the inaction of this government. It's placed at risk future investment in vitamins and pharmaceuticals here in Australia, because manufacturers weren't able to act with the certainty that they wanted when it came to these therapeutic goods. We've seen this half-hearted approach to this multibillion dollar industry. It has led to businesses stripping their packaging of 'made in Australia'. It's increased threats to Australian jobs and businesses. We've seen those frequent threats over time. We can see very directly that the government's incompetence and inaction has harmed Australian companies, Australian workers and Australian wages.

Finally, though, Labor of course supports this bill. We welcome the fact that the government has at last finally taken action to address this issue. I do question why it has taken them so long to take action, and I really express Labor's concerns in the strongest possible terms about its lack of action and responsibility in making progress on this issue. That the government has not taken this issue seriously from the outset and accelerated its resolution more quickly is a great disappointment. It should have acted earlier to protect workers of this very significant industry. Put simply, 510 days is just simply too long for manufacturers to have been stuck in a scenario where they've been unable to display the fact that a product was made in Australia. It beggars belief that it has taken so long for the government to do, as the minister said, all it can to assist. There have been 510 days of inaction, 510 days of delay and 510 days of ignoring this issue and the 30,000 jobs it has put at risk.

We very much welcome the government finally taking action on this. Labor do support the bill, but we really want to see this government do better when it comes to Australian manufacturing. It's talked of things like a so-called gas led recovery, but it's going to take a lot more than that to get industry back up and running properly in Australia. This is a government that has been completely devoid of adequate industry policy. It says it wants to have a manufacturing led recovery and it talks about gas being a leading element of that. There are no other strings to the bow that this government has put forward that will support manufacturing jobs here in Australia. This is yet another example of government inaction that has seen a viable and thriving industry threatened.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.