Page 1769 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 18 August 1992
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The Government must, however, as a matter of priority, continue to work to get the further legislation needed in front of the Assembly in the shortest possible time. This does not mean listing food legislation as a third priority, as we see in the recently released government legislative program. One of the things we are waiting for in part 2 of the legislation is specific controls which would prohibit the use of tobacco where food is being prepared. I think this is important and it deserves more than a third priority.
Mr Berry's suggestion in his opening speech, to make it an offence to sell food beyond its use-by date, was a complete red herring. I think Mr Berry recognised this himself because, in his introduction speech, he went on to discuss the reasons why it is impractical. For instance, it would be inconsistent with uniform national food laws. It could also encourage suppliers to extend the shelf life of products beyond the optimum time for protecting the quality of food. I will add some further points. Members should be aware that, under the National Food Authority Act, there are no so-called use-by dates. Use-by dates in this area simply do not exist. They are in fact best-before dates. Food is not necessarily off if sold after the best-before date. It would be wasteful to prevent a consumer from using food which is still perfectly good but beyond its best-before date, especially if the consumer can obtain this food at lower prices.
In this regard, we should look to the provisions already contained in this Food Bill. They are more than satisfactory. Under the Bill, it is clearly illegal to sell food which has deteriorated or is contaminated. Furthermore, a matter like this is usually best addressed by community education. In fact, the National Food Authority itself recognises that encouraging the community to use best-before information is a matter of education, not legislation. As it is, people probably do not make the full use of information already provided to them on food labels. It must be a priority to remedy this situation through improved consumer education. I think the Government should look at this as a matter of priority.
Another important aspect to mention is hygiene in preparation. The greatest proportion of food contamination is microbiological, and it occurs through handling. Apart from meat and milk, the Food Bill does not deal with hygiene in preparation. Some of these questions are dealt with under a variety of other regulations and Acts, for example, the Public Health Regulations. I understand that the National Food Authority is to begin working on developing standards for uniform national hygiene regulations. This will take about two years. The whole process of considering changes to food legislation will not truly be over until we have these standards to consider.
I would also like to comment on the offences contained in this Bill. These offences provisions will have to be administered very carefully. I would like to foreshadow that I will be proposing an amendment to the offence entitled, "Sale not complying with purchaser's demand". Other provisions which provoke some concern but which we will not be seeking to amend are subclause (2) of clause 12, and clause 17. These two clauses relate to the manner in which food is displayed. They are very nearly duplications of each other. A person who is guilty under subclause (2) of clause 12 will almost certainly be guilty of misleading presentation under clause 17.
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