AFGC: Palm oil labelling bill “unworkable”
Palm oil Bill unworkable and will cost industryA palm oil Bill – which compromises the nation’s food and grocery labelling system – is unworkable in its current form and must be referred to a House of Representatives Committee for further discussion and examination, the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) urged today.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council today called the recent Palm Oil labelling bill, passed in the Senate with amendments last week, “unworkable”, and called for a House of Representatives Committee to further discuss and examine the bill.
The bill was rejected by a Senate Committee, but passed in the senate by an unexpected alliance between the introducer of the bill, independent senator Nick Xenophon, the Greens and the Coalition.
The Bill calls for the mandatory labelling of palm oil within 12 months on all food and grocery products, both on the grounds of truth in labelling and in an attempt to allow consumers to avoid the ingredient, which has been implicated in the destruction of orangutan habitat in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The AFGC said the bill will “impose significant costs to industry, compromise good regulation and labelling and won’t help to save one orangutan.”
AFGC Chief Executive Kate Carnell said there are many reasons why the Truth in Labelling Bill must be referred to a committee for further discussion.
“The Bill only names palm oil as the required ingredient to be listed on a label. Very few products in Australia contain whole palm oil. Most products use derivatives of palm oil or palm kernel oil – which are not listed in the Bill,” she said.
“Food labelling is a State and Territory-based responsibility. As a result, States and Territories will have to pass legislation to require palm oil labelling. They have not been consulted at all on this issue and a Committee would allow States and Territories to have input into the Bill.”
“Enforcement of the Bill will be extremely difficult. How the ACCC will enforce the legislation remains unclear. The ACCC has not been consulted at all on this issue,” she added.
“Palm oil and its derivatives are unable to be verified by laboratory testing as the fatty acids and derivatives are not unique to palm oil. How will the ACCC enforce this?”
“The Bill potentially breaches the Australia / New Zealand Food Treaty, where Australia must not introduce any amendments to food law “without effective consultation” with New Zealand. NZ authorities have not been consulted,” Carnell said.
“Twelve months is not long enough for industry to comply. The standard amount of time given for label changes is 24 months. The cost of changing a single label is between $5000 to $15,000 per product stock keeping unit (SKU). As there are 60,000 products on supermarket shelves – with up to one third containing palm oil – this equates to hundreds of millions of dollars in extra costs.”
“The Bill undermines the current Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Blewett Labelling Review process, which is still underway.”
“As a result, industry is urging all MPs to seriously consider the ramifications of the Bill, and refer it to a House of Representatives Committee so that States and Territories, New Zealand authorities, the ACCC, FSANZ and other interested parties can have their say,” Carnell said.
Consumers have a right to know what they are consuming. Companies have a responsibility to act ethically. As far as I can see, introducing this Bill will make both of these things happen – even if the ethical actions of the companies are driven by a fear of monetary losses!
The AFCG is right. This Bill is a knee jerk reaction to the promptings of green groups who are wont to shoot first and think later.
First, how true are the allegations of palm oil causing massive deforestation?
It is well known that palm oil is grown on only 0.22% of the world’s agricultural land and yet is the world’s leading supplier of edible oil, supplying an incredible 30% of the world’s edible oil. This fact alone should alert any objective observer that something does not jive with all the palm oil and deforestation hype.
Greenpeace regularly trundles out wild and unsubstantiated claims against palm oil, but we all know that these kinds of covert operations against palm oil are well documented.
For instance, In 2005, the oddly named Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) published a “report” called “Cruel Oil: How palm oil harms health, rainforest and wildlife” in which they made wild and unsubstantiated claims that palm oil cultivation was causing massive deforestation and threatening the extinction of biodiversity such as the orang utan.
The report was prepared with the assistance of Aid Environment listed as partners with Hivos — a Netherlands based civil society group with direct links to campaigns in Indonesia. Hivos, in turn, is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for up to two-thirds of its annual 100m Euro budget.
A recent report by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti entitled “Friends of the EU.”
(Vide: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu)showed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of FOE EU.
The main drivers for these covert anti-palm oil campaigns are governments desperate to protect their indigenous edible oil producers who cannot compete on a level ground with the hyper yielding palm oil..
If Malaysian and Indonesian plantations were to stop palm oil production for a year, it would be interesting to see the panic as over 52% of the total world oils and fats exports will disappear (2006 figures and probably higher% now).
The average palm oil yield per year is nearly 6 times that of its nearest competitor, rape seed which is Australia’s third most important crop, 8 times that of sunflower and 10 times that of soyabean.
Imagine the deforestation and devastation in the ‘developed’ countries and tropical forests if oil palm is prevented from production and expansion to meet the world’s demand for oils and fats. The oil palm is a perennial tree crop and in no way, can the other competing annual crops be more ‘green’.
The orang utan and other endangered animals are now well protected.
The industry is pandering to the greenies with the RSPO scheme and yet, it is still being attacked, even by the WWF, its RSPO partner. It is not difficult to ponder on the real motives of the Australian Palm Oil Labeling Bill?