A new attempt to simplify Australia's food labelling Country of Origin (CoO) laws has struck opposition from The Australian Made Campaign.
Australian Made said it would not support the a new CoO bill proposed by the
Australian Greens as Food & Drink Business reported
last week.
Australian Made chief executive, Ian Harrison, said the
organisation would not back new Greens proposals which were introduced into
parliament last week.
These would see CoO labelling of local produce reduced down to three main claims – Product of or Grown in Australia; Manufactured in Australia; and Packaged in Australia.
Harrison cited inconsistency and confusion as the main reasons for the organisation's rejection of the proposal.
“Australian Made cannot support the
bill in its current form,” he said.
“The bill creates a separate and
inconsistent set of country of origin labelling requirements for some food
products (products partly or fully processed in Australia) as distinct from
other food products (fully imported foods) and all other categories of
product.”
Harrison said labelling should be simple and consistent, and
this proposal would increase rather than reduce confusion for consumers as well
as businesses.
“Australian Made does not see the value in banning the
claims ‘Australian Made’ or ‘Made in Australia’ in favour of the exactly
equivalent terms ‘Australian Manufactured’ or ‘Manufactured in Australia’,” he
said.
In addition, said Harrison, the bill did not appear to cover
packaged food grown, as opposed to processed, in Australia.
“Where
products cannot meet the criteria for ‘Grown in Australia’, ‘Product of
Australia’ or ‘Manufactured in Australia’, the bill proposes only one allowable
claim – ‘Packaged in Australia’,” he said.
“Australian Made believes that
a wider range of alternative claims should be allowable for products such as
pickles processed in Australia from imported vegetables.”
According to
Harrison, Australian Made did not support the use of qualified claims such as
‘Made in Australia from imported and local ingredients’.
The opposition
to the bill threatens to further derail long-running attempts to simplify
Australia's CoO laws.
A meeting of federal, state and New Zealand
ministers last year deferred a decision on the issue in favour of continued
community and industry consultation.
In April this year, a senate
committee rejected an initial attempt by the Australian Greens to introduce
legislation to resolve the matter. Last week Greens leader Christine Milne
introduced the latest bill in hopes of reaching consensus and resolving the
matter.
