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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 689 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Would we get rid of the call centre and customer inquiry facility, despite the fact that we would need to retain this to some degree for water, sewerage and electricity network calls? That is a difficult issue. A separation would not be easy on those terms.

Another question is: What do we do about ACTEW House? A whole floor of ACTEW House is taken up by those 47 people who provide electricity retail services. If they went would we still retain ACTEW House. We do not use a number of floors of ACTEW House as it is for ACTEW. With another floor vacant, would it be viable to retain ACTEW House? Perhaps not. Of course, as well as the 47 staff who work directly for ACTEW retail, there are other staff in corporate support who provide computing services and finance and personnel services of all sorts to those 47 people. How many of them would have to be retrenched or let go because we got rid of those 47 staff?

So, no, Mr Speaker, segregation would not be a simple matter. It would not be an easy matter to accomplish. It would be a matter in some ways that would necessarily result in either higher costs flowing back to the remainder of ACTEW or there being quite uncomfortable bits jutting out of our business operation which had not been taken care of by that separation. Mr Speaker, I think we need to be very careful before suggesting seriously that we can simply separate the two.

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Moore, the Minister for Health. Mr Moore, as you are aware, Heinz Wattie's has been forced to remove statements from rice cereal packets that breast milk is not sufficient to sustain a four-month to six-month baby, after a complaint was made to the ACCC about this being deceptive and misleading labelling. As I understand it, Heinz still has products on the shelves with misleading labels. As you are aware, there are some difficulties in using the Food Act to prosecute. However, it is possible to use the Fair Trading Act, section 44, for an injunction, and section 45 to require them to correct their labelling and promotional material. This was first raised with the department in 1998. Heinz has not acted in good faith when addressing the problem, and you have not acted to prosecute. If breast milk was a commercial product there would be outrage from the corporation concerned. As it is not, we rely on you as Minister for Health to ensure that public health is not compromised by commercial interests. We have these laws to ensure that companies do the right thing. What is the use of such laws if the Government does not bother to enforce them?

MR MOORE: In fact, Ms Tucker, I asked a question of the department on this matter some days ago. I think it was on Monday. I can give you a fairly comprehensive answer because I think this is an important issue. It was in October 1998 that a constituent first made a complaint that the labelling of Heinz rice cereal was false, deceptive and misleading, and contravened the ACT Food Act.

The department did carry out an investigation. The people they contacted during that investigation included the Australian New Zealand Food Authority, ANZFA, Heinz Wattie's Australasia, the local Victorian council in which the Heinz plant was located, the City of Greater Dandenong, and the Southern Metropolitan Region of the Victorian

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