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Australian Made rejects proposed changes to food labelling

While accepting the shortcomings of Australia's current labelling regime, Australian Made has rejected proposed changes put forward by the Greens.

The Australian Made Campaign stated its case yesterday before the Sentate Rural and Regional Affairs Committee hearing into the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Food Labelling Bill) 2012, which is looking to address country of origin labelling laws.

Ian Harrison, chief executive of the Australian Made Campaign, said changes need to be made to the current labelling regime and welcomed conversation on alternatives, but said the proposed Bill falls short of what Australia needs.

"The proposed Bill is a step in the right direction, but misses the mark on some very important issues, including substantial transformation, which is all about where products are made," he said.

"For consumers to be able to make educated decisions about the food they purchase, that information must be made available."

Australian Made called for the definition of substantial transformation to be restricted so it's becomes more difficult for products with high imported content and minimal processing in Australia to pass themselves off as Australian.

"At present, the rules for using the Australian Made, Australian Grown logo on food products are more stringent than the rules applied by the ACCC," Harrison said.

"We are calling on the government to follow the Australian Made Campaign's lead, to make it easier for consumers to identify genuine Aussie products and to build greater consumer confidence back into Australia’s food labelling system."

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) also rejected the Green's Bill, arguing it has the potential to mislead consumers and drive jobs offshore.

AFGC CEO Gary Dawson, said "The Greens' Country of Origin Labelling proposal fails its own test in protecting Australian jobs by effectively ignoring the economic value-add of the nearly 300,000 Australians employed directly in the food and grocery processing sector, including 8,000 in Tasmania."

 

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