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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2645 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

A new food agreement was signed by the Council of Australian Governments, COAG, on 3 November 2000. The new agreement addresses many of the recommendations of the 1998 national food regulation review, known as the Blair report. The 2000 agreement ensures the continued adoption of the food standards code, but also commits jurisdictions, including the ACT, to the adoption of the model food provisions, the national food safety standards which will replace our existing food hygiene regulations, and a new system for food regulation. Prior to the current Chief Minister signing the 2000 agreement, the former Chief Minister wrote to MLAs to seek comments on both the agreement and the model food provisions and to inform them of the government's intention to enter into the agreement.

The model food provisions are divided into two parts, core and non-core. The core provisions, which under the 2000 agreement must be adopted by a jurisdiction in the same terms, relate to: definitions; offences, including those against the food standards code and the food safety standards; defences; and emergency powers. The non-core provisions are optional and cover the administration of the act. They include inspection, seizure, food sampling, analysis, food business registration, infringement notices, and miscellaneous provisions.

Under the 2000 agreement, jurisdictions also agreed that they would not create their own unique food standards, except where they were of a temporary nature, and then only to protect public health and safety. In accordance with that, the bill does not include reference to any existing ACT provisions which are inconsistent with national food standards. This means that the ACT's current egg labelling requirements have not been incorporated into this bill.

Support has already been sought from senior state and territory health and agriculture department officials for an amendment to the food standards code to require the labelling of eggs consistent with current ACT requirements. Additionally, as an aside, I will say that when I was at the recent food ministers conference I spoke informally to ministers to see whether there would be a change in attitude by the ministers. I can tell members that there was no willingness at all on the part of ministers, as with their officials, to allow an exemption that would set a precedent. I will get to the reason for that shortly. Unfortunately, support was not forthcoming from either those officials or those ministers as they considered it to be an animal welfare issue that should not be dealt with in food law.

It should be noted, however, that the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand, ARMCANZ, the ministerial council which is responsible for agricultural issues, recently endorsed a national standard for egg labelling. The standard is to be implemented on a voluntary basis until it is mandated under the new national egg production assurance program. Once mandated under this program, all signatories to the program will be required to label egg packaging according to the method of production of the egg, that is, cage, barn, aviary or free range.

I understand that both the standard and the program already have widespread industry support and that the majority of egg producers will be complying with the labelling standard within the near future. Again as an aside again, members will no doubt receive, as I have, many letters saying how terrible it is to remove the ACT egg labelling regime. It is, effectively, a temporary measure, and it will be extended to Australia, rather than

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