The Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry has announced a new inquiry into country of origin food labelling. The inquiry has been referred by the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce MP, and Minister for Industry, Ian Macfarlane MP.
The Committee invited responses to its terms of reference, which are:
• Whether the current Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) system provides enough information for Australian consumers to make informed purchasing
• Whether Australia’s CoOL laws are being complied with, and what, if any, are the practical limitations to compliance
• Whether improvements could be made, including to simplify the current system and/or reduce the compliance burden
• Whether Australia’s CoOL laws are being circumvented by staging imports through third countries
• The impact on Australia’s international trade obligations of any proposed changes to Australia’s CoOL laws.
Submissions should be emailed to agind.reps@aph.gov.au before 2 May 2014.
The Standing Committee emphasised that making a submission constituted the giving of evidence and attracted parliamentary privilege. Once a submission has been provided to the Committee, in cannot be withdrawn or altered without the Committee’s permission. A submission should not be disclosed to any other person until its publication has been authorised by the Committee. When a submission has been formally authorised it will be published on the Committee’s website.
Guidelines on making a submission, including details about parliamentary privilege and requests for confidentiality, are available online here
