Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I firstly want to thank the member for Makin for moving tonight’s motion on food labelling standards. It is an exceptionally important area of legislation, and a lot of good can be done in a community sense by getting these sorts of frameworks right. I commend the member for putting this forward. I note for the record that I have spoken on these types of issues—such as food labelling and other standards, as well as genetically modified foods and other products—on a number of occasions over many years. I have a very real interest in these things, mainly because they are issues of consumer protection, consumer rights and the ability of people to make free and fully informed decisions about the types of products they consume. Getting that framework right is about getting labelling right in more than one area, so I again congratulate the member for Makin for tonight’s motion on these particular standards.

Of course, food labelling is not just about what is contained within a food product itself but also about how much you pay for it, what its value is, what its weight is, the additives that are contained in it and a whole range of issues that affect us today more than they ever have in the past, because of the complex nature of and the variety of ways in which foods are brought to our table. It is exceptionally complex for interested people, let alone intelligent people, to decipher or make sense of what a food label actually tells you. This is so for anyone who is in the practice of reading them, and I hope that most people are; I know I am. I still do the shopping. I still think I am reasonably well grounded. I can tell you the price of a loaf of bread in any range, colour or size—or, for that matter, of the 368 different types of milk containers that are on the market.

The reality is that it is important to know not only what is in a product but how it compares to other food products on the shelves. The basis of all of this comes back to the standard of our food labelling and how that works for ordinary people, because the labelling itself is what people use to understand what it is they buy. Having that right is critically important, and, while I think we have certainly come a long way and that food labelling is better than it was at times in the past, it still has room for improvement. This government has certainly been very active in making sure that we get these things correct for consumers, and I note the good work that Minister Bowen has done in terms of unit pricing and the importance that plays. I am a beneficiary of some of that, because when I go shopping with my family I always explain to my kids that they should look at what they are purchasing, look at the label, understand where their money is going and understand how much it is per unit or per hundred grams or how many you actually get in a packet.

I do that so that, when they buy something off a shelf, they actually understand what they are purchasing—what is inside that package or can. And I have to say that these days I find myself buying fewer and fewer things that are contained in a packet or in a can. I am not passing a particular judgment, as I think that some food products that come in a can are quite healthy and quite good. And if the labelling is right then I think it is quite okay. But, generally speaking, it would be better, and it would help our farmers, if people bought fresh produce. The more people make a conscious choice to buy from the butcher, from the baker, from the farmers’ market, from the smaller grocery store, from the fresh food store and from the fruit and vegetable outlet, the more opportunity they have to be in touch with what they are purchasing and probably the less labelling they will need. If you are buying fresh fruit and fresh vegetables, or meat from your butcher, you do not need as much labelling, because you know that not much else has gone into it, apart from the product you are actually purchasing. I would encourage consumers to take more of that approach.

But in the absence of that I understand the time or location difficulties there are for people. They find themselves spending all of their food dollars at a particular store. I am not going to mention any in this place. The only weapon they have to arm themselves with to make a clear and conscious choice is decent product labelling. I commend any work that this government is doing and has done and any work that has been done previously to ensure that consumers know what they are buying, what they are paying for and what impact it may have on their health and that of their families.

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