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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-12 Daily Xml
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CONSUMER AFFAIRS FORUM

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (14:02): Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Light.

Mr PICCOLO: My question is to the Minister for Business Services and Consumers. Can the minister inform the house about the outcomes of the recent Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:03): I thank the honourable member for his question. The second meeting of the Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs, the Consumer Affairs Forum, was held on Friday 6 July 2012, in Adelaide. The Consumer Affairs Forum, which involves the commonwealth, state, territory and New Zealand ministers responsible for fair trade and consumer protection laws, is a very important meeting and a very important forum. Many of the important issues discussed are set out in the joint communiqué for the meeting, available at www.consumerlaw.gov.au.

One of the important matters that I raised at that meeting was the question of food labelling, in particular accuracy in country of origin food labelling. I am delighted to report that other jurisdictions, in particular New South Wales, were also very enthusiastic about having this matter raised higher up the national agenda. As a result of that, there have been a number of determinations made, which I would like to briefly outline to the parliament.

The first is that the state and territory consumer affairs bodies—and we are talking here in conjunction with the national body, the ACCC—will be looking at prosecution where they find that the current regime relating to food labelling is being flouted by either manufacturers or retailers. That is going to be a matter of some focus.

The second thing is that I believe that all Australians have a right to know exactly what they are buying and, in particular, country of origin information. I am very keen to see this progressed. As a result of that, there is now to be some work done in the next six months, led by South Australia and New South Wales in conjunction with the commonwealth, to see whether we can improve the national regime relating to food labelling with particular reference to country of origin information.

I can also advise the parliament that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will, as a result of direction from the federal minister, communicate with the retail sector with a view to warning them of the consequences of prosecution for breach of the Australian Consumer Law. Labelling is an important issue, and ministers agreed to keep food labelling laws under review and, in particular, any legal issues that might arise from prosecutions including, of course, whether these prosecutions are difficult to secure for technical reasons. The Consumer Affairs Forum will be receiving a report on this issue in detail at the December meeting of the consumer affairs ministers in Sydney.

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