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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2793 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

by the Follett Government. That, in essence, provides for the adoption in Australia and New Zealand of the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code without amendment. That was achieved in the ACT by the ACT Food Act 1992, whereby each amendment to the code as it is gazetted is automatically adopted into ACT law.

The agreement provides that no State shall, by legislation or by other means, establish or amend a food standard other than in accordance with this agreement. A State, and this includes a Territory, may amend or adopt a new standard where circumstances affect public health and safety and where time does not permit the normal application process, that is, getting agreement from other jurisdictions. No-one would argue that that was the case in this particular instance. The Food Amendment Bill before the house today, in effect, amends the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code. We cannot argue that there is any urgency in that. It is not an urgent issue. We would normally be expected to take such issues through the appropriate channels, including the Australia New Zealand Food Authority.

The Animal Welfare (Amendment) Bill seeks to omit the provision that provides that it would be a defence to a prosecution for certain offences under the Act where the conduct engaged in is in accordance with an approved code of practice. The code is a statutory instrument that is disallowable on the floor of the Assembly. These codes are developed by the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee in consultation with industry, and they help to specify the minimum standards for care and use of animals in the ACT. The codes obviously have a consultative element in them. They are very important in dealing with these things on a cooperative basis with industry. Clearly, the repeal of the code removes defences available to producers such as Parkwood and obviates the principle of consultation with those bodies, which is at the very core of the Animal Welfare Bill that was passed by the Follett Government. It is a regressive step, in my view.

Ms Horodny states in her presentation speech that industry codes of practice are not believed to have much to do with animal welfare and that they should not be a defence against prosecution. She says that the existing code of practice is vaguely worded and subject to differing interpretations. If that is the case, we should amend the codes of practice or take the issue up with the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, not unilaterally remove the protection and the guidance that the code offers to producers like Parkwood.

The effect of the Greens' Bill is more far-reaching than just the poultry industry. To date in the ACT 22 codes of practice have been approved under the Animal Welfare Act. In many cases the codes are either developed or amended by the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee in consultation with affected groups. It is appropriate that they be used in that way. That is what they are designed to do. To remove, as the present Bill does, the benefit of all those codes is an extremely sweeping and unfortunate development in what was viewed by the Assembly, admittedly some years ago now, as a step towards providing a better framework for people to understand what their obligations were, without prescribing exhaustively in legislation, in an inflexible way, what all the provisions should be. The codes are meant to be more capable of evolution and change than the legislation itself is, and that is why the codes are important. I would strongly urge members not to agree to the wholesale abolition of the codes. That would be a very serious backward step.

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