Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Cosmetics) Bill 2007. The bill amends the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989 and provides legislative underpinning for the reform of cosmetics regulation in Australia, which has for the past several years been implemented on a limited, interim and administrative basis.

The proposed amendments to the act are intended to provide underpinning for reforms to the regulation of cosmetics, as part of the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme’s low regulatory concern chemicals reform program, and to make minor changes to the legislation to improve clarity, increase consistency in the legislation and address minor technical anomalies or unintended effects of the legislation.

Labor anticipate that this bill will have favourable outcomes for consumers, industry and government. We are particularly supportive of this bill because the legislative underpinning of the regulatory scheme for cosmetics will provide clarity for all involved in the cosmetics industry in Australia.

By way of background, NICNAS is the Australian government’s regulatory authority for industrial chemicals, including domestic chemicals, personal care products and cosmetics. The scheme was established in 1990 under the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989 and is located within the Office of Chemical Safety in the Department of Health and Ageing. NICNAS operates within a whole-of-government chemicals regulatory framework that consists of four assessment and registration schemes. In addition to the chemicals scheme operated by NICNAS, there are regulatory frameworks operated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, for medicines and medical devices; by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, for food and food additives; and by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, for pesticides and veterinary medicines. The overall aim of these regulatory structures is to provide for the health and safety of the Australian people whilst also protecting the environment.

NICNAS in particular works to encourage the safe and sustainable use of industrial chemicals, providing a national notification and assessment scheme that assesses both chemicals already in use and chemicals that are new to Australia. NICNAS assessment information is made widely available and assists states and territories—particularly their offices of health and safety, public health and environmental agencies—in the environmentally sound management of industrial chemicals. NICNAS assessments also provide risk and safety information to industry, workers and the public, to promote greater awareness of the dangers of chemicals and advice on how to use them safely.

The bill will amend the 1989 act to extend the current regulatory scheme for industrial chemicals to the regulation of cosmetics as administered by the Director of NICNAS. Historically, cosmetics in Australia have been regulated within the Health and Ageing portfolio by both NICNAS and the TGA. Under the act as it currently stands, and reflecting the historical timing of the establishment of the respective regulatory agencies, a product is deemed to be a cosmetic if it is not a therapeutic good. This is determined with reference to claims about the product and its composition. This approach for defining cosmetics by their exclusion as medicines has created a disconnect between Australian industries and some of Australia’s trading partners in the sector.

This approach has also led to differential regulation of broadly similar products. Under the act as it currently stands, products classified as cosmetics are regulated by NICNAS and include an environmental assessment of chemicals in the cosmetic products, whereas therapeutic goods come under the TGA’s regulatory umbrella and no environmental assessment is undertaken. The move to reform the regulatory interface between cosmetics and therapeutic goods can be traced to the Australian government’s November 2002 response to the Chemicals and Plastics Action Agenda, which included a commitment to consider and develop options for assessing and/or testing chemicals presenting low regulatory concern. The NICNAS Low Regulatory Concern Chemicals Task Force was subsequently established to investigate the reform of the regulation of industrial chemicals of low regulatory concern.

In an acknowledgement of the particular regulatory challenges that cosmetics present, cosmetics were considered separately in this process through the Low Regulatory Concern Chemicals Cosmetics Technical Working Group. NICNAS and the TGA subsequently undertook an independent review of the regulation of products at the cosmetic-therapeutic interface in 2004-05. A draft discussion paper, Review of the regulation of products at the interface between cosmetics and therapeutic goods, was published in March 2005 for public comment and 85 written responses to this review were received from a wide range of stakeholders, including representatives of industry, consumers, regulators, medical practitioners and health care interest groups. There was overwhelming support for the proposed reforms from a majority of respondents.

The government’s response to the independent review, the Regulation of cosmetic chemicals: final report and recommendations, was published on 1 November 2005 and the Cosmetic Reforms Implementation Working Group, comprising community, industry and government representatives, was established to finalise the NICNAS cosmetic guidelines. The cosmetic guidelines consist of a set of cascading instruments which comprise criteria for defining cosmetics, a table of product categories including mandated conditions to ensure compliance with performance or other standards as required and a new mechanism for publicly identifying those chemicals that are prohibited or restricted for use in cosmetics in Australia.

The NICNAS cosmetic guidelines have provided the administrative basis for the interim regulation of some cosmetic products. According to the explanatory memorandum to this bill, permits have been issued by NICNAS which allow for the specified product to be regulated as a cosmetic under the interim arrangements, provided that the product complies with the guidelines. This arrangement has now been in place for 12 months and over 200 products are already subject to the arrangements.

The government cited a number of reasons for now seeking legislative underpinning of these guidelines. Firstly, these interim administrative arrangements have applied only to a limited set of cosmetics; for example, skin-whitening products and anti-ageing products have not been subject to compliance. According to the explanatory memorandum, the system has been difficult to properly enforce and there is currently no capacity to penalise companies for noncompliance. There is also no capacity to charge fees from the regulated companies for cosmetic permits issued under the interim administrative arrangements, which the government has argued is not consistent with best practice. The bill therefore seeks to implement the reforms on a legislative rather than an administrative basis and to extend the reforms to additional types of cosmetics. Labor supports that approach being taken in order to clarify and enable these other matters to be properly covered.

The bill establishes a system of notification and assessment of industrial chemicals to protect health, safety and the environment and to provide for registration of certain persons proposing to introduce industrial chemicals. It provides for the minister to determine standards by legislative instrument for cosmetics imported into or manufactured in Australia, having regard to Australia’s international obligations.

The detail of the bill obviously sets out the particular method for ensuring that those changes can come about. The new legislative scheme for cosmetics will be implemented under the 1989 act. Schedule 1 of the bill makes that change. Item 1 amends the long title to reference the fact that the legislation will, as a result of the amendments, provide for national standards for cosmetics imported into or manufactured in Australia. There is a new objects section of the act. The proposed section 3 replicates the existing objects section but adds an additional object which provides for national standards for cosmetics imported into or manufactured in Australia and the enforcement of those standards, and there are various changes which insert references to cosmetics alongside existing references to chemicals.

Item 4 repeals the existing definition of ‘cosmetic’ within subsection 5(1) and inserts a new definition defining ‘cosmetic’ in full by drawing on the wording currently contained in the definition of ‘chemical product’ within the Trade Practices (Consumer Product Information Standards) (Cosmetics) Regulations 1991, which aligns us with the European definition of ‘cosmetic’. The definition clarifies that a cosmetic does not include a therapeutic good within the meaning of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989. The definition expressly includes and excludes any substance or preparation prescribed in the regulations. This has been included to ensure flexibility, particularly in relation to changes in the cosmetic industry or changes in national and international definitions that may occur over time.

Items 5 to 10 make a range of other amendments to definitions so that certain terms are no longer specific to chemicals but also apply to cosmetics. Item 11 inserts a new part 3B: ‘Standards for cosmetics imported into, or manufactured in, Australia’. The part provides for the minister, by legislative instrument, to determine the standards, and not only must the standard be registered in accordance with the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 but a copy must be published in the Chemical Gazette. For compliance with standards, this part also deals with criminal offences for importing into or manufacturing in Australia a cosmetic that is subject to the standard and does not meet the standard, and the maximum penalty for failure to comply is 120 penalty units, equivalent to $66,000 for a corporation.

Items 12 to 15 amend section 86 to enable an inspector to monitor compliance with the legislation in relation to cosmetics as well as industrial chemicals. Obviously these provisions are important when the scheme, to date, has been administered on an administrative and ad hoc basis and, as the government notes in its introductory comments and explanatory memorandum, this is one of the reasons for wanting to move this scheme, regularise it and put it into legislation so that these sorts of offences can be included. Schedule 2 of the bill deals with a range of other measures and makes a range of minor changes to improve the clarity and consistency of the act.

As I said at the beginning, Labor supports this bill. We prefer the legislative rather than administrative underpinning of the NICNAS cosmetic guidelines and we think it will help to clarify the regulatory roles and responsibilities of NICNAS and the TGA with respect to cosmetic chemicals. The changes will increase the government’s capacity to monitor and enforce compliance with the guidelines and to take action in the event of noncompliance. A legislative rather than an administrative framework will also provide greater clarity and certainty for industry—something that, of course, they always want—will help to reduce inconsistencies in the level of regulation for cosmetic products and will remove subsequent barriers to trade arising from the regulations. As I noted earlier, it is also important that it is now making us consistent with more of our trading partners in this area.

Most importantly, regulation of cosmetics by NICNAS ensures consumer confidence in cosmetic products. All products regulated as cosmetic by NICNAS will require full disclosure of ingredients on the labels, which is not currently the case for products regulated as therapeutics by the TGA, and will include an environmental assessment of chemicals in cosmetic products—again, something that I have noted is not included for the TGA assessment process. Consumers will be assured that cosmetics are subject to NICNAS oversight in such areas as the protection of health, occupational health and safety and the environment.

In summary, we are confident that the bill will help all parties involved in the cosmetic industry in maintaining confidence in the regulatory process and giving it appropriate teeth for its enforcement. Accordingly I commend the bill to the House.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Cosmetics) Bill 2007, as the member for Gellibrand has just mentioned, is not in dispute in the House. It seems to have, as the government has chosen, an excellent practical effect. In reading the explanatory memorandum, I was somewhat astounded—but maybe I should not be, as I have been married for many years—to note that Australia accounts for approximately 1.2 per cent of worldwide sales of cosmetic products, with many products imported as fully formulated and packed products. That is 1.2 per cent of global consumption. However, the Australian cosmetics and toiletries market has been estimated by local industry organisations as being worth $5.2 billion and covers about 700 million units consumed annually. In other words, all that advertising we see obviously works. It is a very large industry and it is associated with products applied to the human body and, as such, warrants the appropriate oversight by government.

I wish to clarify an issue that I think the member for Gellibrand had some difficulty with, and that is the acronym for the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme; it is NICNAS. Children might have to recite it to show that they have the capacity to pronounce those sorts of things! This legislation is important. There are aspects of the government’s response in assessing the problem to which I would like to refer. Recommendations regarding this issue were considered by government in late 2005. Reforms were implemented on a limited interim administrative basis in relation to some cosmetics through the NICNAS Cosmetic Guidelines until such time as the legislation could be amended to enable the guidelines to become enforceable standards under the act. While the ingredients in cosmetics have been regulated by NICNAS as industrial chemicals for quite some time, the bill represents an extension of the existing approach by enabling the minister to make standards by legislative instrument for cosmetics products as a whole that are imported into or manufactured in Australia. With such a large product range, and considering the application of these products to the human body, that is an excellent proposition.

It is also worthy of note that this legislation will better define the responsibilities of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, and NICNAS with respect to their particular responsibilities regarding the nature of these products. A third regulator, the agricultural and veterinary chemicals products manufacturing body, also has a significant role in this area. Prior to the conclusion of my speech, I want to make some remarks in that regard. The requirement is that we have an ongoing consideration of how the bureaucratic approach is applied. Speakers in this debate have made the point that this legislation will simplify various aspects of that process, and I hope that is to be the case. As the explanatory memorandum advises me:

In relation to cosmetics, the major objectives of the agreed reforms were to:

• clarify the interface between TGA and NICNAS in terms of the regulation of cosmetics;
• enable a greater range of cosmetics to be regulated by NICNAS rather than the TGA;
• improve regulation at the interface for identified product types, including changes that could enhance the transparency and useability of existing regulatory documents; and
• specifically address issues dealing with antiperspirants, mass-market antidandruff shampoos, moisturisers with SPF, antibacterial skin washes, and anti-acne cleansers.

All of these products are used comprehensively by many people and are of considerable importance. It might be interesting to know, as we are discussing chemicals, that the most effective deodorant now available is common salt in a block. Not only does it work very well from my personal experience, but it seems to be totally anti-allergenic. I guess it will still be priced well above the equivalent amount of salt one might buy for cooking. This is a reform people might take note of.

The objectives of government action are to maintain or enhance appropriate health, safety and environmental standards and, as far as possible, align Australia’s regulation of cosmetics with the international regulatory standards of major trading partners, thereby minimising any trade barriers. This will also enable full implementation of the agreed reforms for cosmetics at the interface; only partial implementation has been possible under the interim arrangements. A related objective is to ensure that there is clarity and regulatory certainty regarding the regulation of cosmetics and this will further enable NICNAS to recover the cost of the regulation of such cosmetics. The table provided shows that, of the options available to the government, the evidence is that this particular approach will be the least expensive. Whilst there is a relationship to cost in certain areas, it would appear from that table that this approach would be substantially lower than option 1, which is canvassed in the explanatory memorandum and on which I do not intend to comment today.

This is government legislation doing everything possible to implement a process that is simplified and certain and which hopefully will not limit the time or ability of people who manufacture or promote these different products in getting them to market. I have just made the point that it is only in recent times that someone has found that salt in a block is probably the most effective and least intrusive of deodorants. One wonders just how long someone looked at salt in that capacity to work out whether or not we could use it, notwithstanding that we drink it and eat it. So sometimes we find that the process is annoying, and I am of the opinion that that is the situation when it comes to agricultural chemicals. I am deeply concerned about the processes there. We had the opportunity to talk with the acting director only yesterday in the backbench agricultural committee, and we expressed our concerns about some of those activities. It is too good an opportunity not to say that there are significant delays.

The legislation has time limits in which these matters can be considered and that is to be applauded, but as a representative of rural people I constantly get strong expressions of concern about the delays in introducing new products. We are at pains with the NICNAS process in recognising that a lot of these products are imported and in considering how we should best deal with them, especially considering that most of the European and American sources of these products have quite stringent testing procedures, which I gather from the WTO reference in the explanatory memorandum will be recognised as such.

People who go offshore to pick up generic chemicals such as glyphosate, which ran out of patent many years ago, have all sorts of barriers in labelling and finding out how these things might work as agricultural and veterinary chemicals. Often they are very much needed. There has been a tendency in recent times to revisit past approvals. There is a product known as diazinon, which has been the standard treatment for blowfly strike and other infestations in sheepskin and wool, and it works particularly well. It also represents an alternative to mulesing, which is a surgical approach to stopping the wool around the breech of a sheep and therefore the most terrible attack by blowflies. As a consequence, it is very important.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the member for O’Connor is straying from the bill.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wanted to point out that, while for diazinon we have these three separate administrative organisations to test these products, we seem to be able to create some shortcuts for cosmetics, and I approve of that. In the veterinary chemicals area, not only do we seem to have significant delays; we also have people revisiting products of that nature and saying that we should not use them anymore because they have some danger to humanity. I wonder, if that same approach were taken to some cosmetics that are popular with the females in particular, whether they would accept being told that they could not use a favourite cosmetic anymore for reasons that suggest that it would be harmful to them, when it had been used for years and it had had no harmful effect.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are not suggesting, Wilson, that they should be mulesed, are you!

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly not. The reality I am pointing out is that this is the alternative. That chemical was very useful to people in agriculture, and they have now simply been told that they cannot use it. Yet I can find examples of neither harm to humans over the many years that it has been used nor in fact, for that matter, harm to the sheep which frequently get dunked in it, let alone sprayed with it. I just make the point because the opportunity arises, in all of these processes, for the political structure to provide that the test not be overly intrusive or overly expensive, because obviously that cost will be passed on to consumers. In the case of veterinary chemicals, we find people wanting to withdraw products that have been around for a very long time, have a very definite use and, as far as I can see from a practical perspective, do not have any harmful effects.

I well remember reading a very interesting article in this wider regard about how easy it is to prove that a particular product is carcinogenic. Of course the typical process is to feed the product or make it available to laboratory rats. But the best way to induce cancer in a laboratory rat is to feed it too much protein. If they eat too much, they will get cancer. It might be a bit of a message to us. But the reality is that you can affect the outcome of those particular tests outside of the effect of the product being tested. I think these things need to be put on the record because that is quite silly.

It is interesting to note, when one starts to test these products—I made comment, as you might remember, in the party room—that testing capacity is now so definitive that a scientist writing on these matters and making that reference to laboratory rats said that we could now discover two teaspoons of vermouth if they were in the Great Lakes of America and if those Great Lakes were full of gin. This fellow went on to say that that would be a very dry martini. So we have those testing procedures, and we should be using them more positively in testing for drugs in humans. I will not extend on that for fear that I might also be told that I am getting a bit off the mark.

I support this legislation. It is very practical, and I hope it performs to the convenience of the industry and the consumer in a somewhat better way than the APVMA process.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australian manufacturing industries have for a long time been an interest of mine. Whether it be the building industry, the metal trades or the chemical and plastics industries, which are some of the industries involved in the legislation we are looking at today, they have always been an interest of mine. We need to retain a high level of skills in Australia so that we can not only pay our way in the world by manufacturing, onshore, things that are economically possible to manufacture but also maintain a defence capacity, a security for the nation, with a wide range of skills available for the use of the community should we ever need them. So there are two aspects of my interest in manufacturing industries.

Today we are looking at industries which are affected by NICNAS. The bill is entitled the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Cosmetics) Bill 2007. It really deals with the NICNAS program for low regulatory concern chemicals. I would remind the House while we are dealing with cosmetics that it is notable that some of the great regents of Britain died in fact because of the cosmetics they used. Arsenic was a very significant component that Queen Elizabeth I used to maintain an unflawed complexion. It is said that the arsenic contained in the cosmetics she used were one of the reasons for her death. Whether or not that is truth or legend, I do not know, but I refer to the previous discussion in the House regarding the role and the use of cosmetics being widespread, and the fact that safety is a significant factor. I do not think anyone would be reluctant to draw back from the need for the National Industrial Chemical Notification Assessment Scheme, NICNAS, to have some sort of role in identifying problems with chemicals.

For some time I have been corresponding with NICNAS and with various ministers about the implementation of NICNAS. It goes back to discussions I had with an organisation called ROAM early in 2006. ROAM stands for Remove Obstacles to Australian Manufacture. I know some of the members of ROAM. What they have talked about to me and to government members’ committees is the unnecessary removal of Australian jobs in the manufacturing sector. That is something I feel strongly about and something that needs looking at. I will read briefly from a statement by ROAM:

Over the past 40 years or so manufacturers as a proportion of GDP have declined from about 35 per cent to below 10 per cent and are still falling. Many private sector economists believe that the Australian economy cannot be sustained in the longer term if serious steps are not taken now to reverse this trend. Australia is a high labour cost economy and hence will not be able to manufacture goods that will be cost competitive with lower labour cost countries. There are many areas where we could product cost effective goods but are prevented from doing so by legislation and regulation that serves no real purpose other than to guarantee that we export manufacturing jobs.

The statement goes on to explain:

ROAM is an informal group of people who have come together because they feel strongly about these issues. The new Industrial Chemical Notification Assessment Scheme is one such area identified that prevents the use of new raw material and ingredients by manufacturers and exerts control on the use of existing raw materials.

NICNAS requires that all new substances be accredited before listing on the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances. Such accreditation is time demanding and extremely expensive, with estimates ranging between 250,000 and 500,000 per ingredient. All new ingredients must be accredited, even if safer than the one being replaced.

We will present to you examples in support of our claim that this legislation is contributing to the demise of Australia as a manufacturing economy and we suggest options that will still address the very reason given for enacting the NICNAS legislation initially—that is, to protect the worker, the environment and the consumer.

I would have to say that to a good degree NICNAS has been dealt with by ROAM. I find the ROAM arguments convincing, despite responses from parliamentary secretaries and ministers, who seem to follow a very rigid department of health line but do not really take into account the rest of the world or some practical matters.

I will read from a NICNAS letter of 18 July 2006:

Whilst the NICNAS legislation is about new substances the principal thrust is regarding new industrial chemicals but it is not really the industrial chemical manufacturers that are being effected. It is the Australian manufacturing industries generally that are being harmed by not being able to gain access to new substances ... that their overseas competitors are able to access & use. All manufacturing industries are effected, whether it be a steel maker (industrial chemicals are used in the steel making/refining processes) or a manufacturer of bread (stabilisers & emulsifiers). Even commercial offices rely on computer and photocopier inks, and to manufacture welding electrodes requires industrial chemicals. Personal care products be they simple anti perspirants or hair shampoos are reliant upon such ingredients.

Australia is not really a large manufacturer of industrial chemicals. Of course we produce high tonnages of agricultural fertilisers & things like caustic soda and sodium cyanide where sizeable domestic markets exist. Then there are more speciality industrial chemicals but by & large only substances of a ‘traditional’ nature where use was well established prior to the introduction of the NICNAS legislation. There is very little R & D now into such new industrial chemicals in Australia—almost all new substances are developed overseas.

There are a number of foreign owned producers of industrial chemicals here e.g. Huntsman, Shell, Monsanto, Borden Chemical etc who produce ‘traditional’ ingredients & have a capacity to import & market new substances from their foreign parents. Then there are the Australian producers like Orica, Nuplex/APS etc who spend most of their R & D budgets on process development/refinement rather than on new product (ingredient/substance) ...

It is the producer of plastic pipe that is hurt by NICNAS because he cannot access the latest ingredients such as plasticizers, UV inhibitors, stabilisers, impact modifiers etc—in many cases that producer of pipe may not even be aware of the latest ingredient or the reasons why he cannot buy & use them.

Mostly new industrial chemicals would be introduced to the Australian market by trading companies or the trading divisions of manufacturers. Those traders have sales volumes from say A$1 million pa up to A$500+ million pa & they represent foreign manufacturers of industrial chemicals. Not wishing to detract from the efforts of Australian scientists ... almost all new industrial chemicals are produced overseas hence the local representative is relied upon to introduce such substances to potential users in Australia. Even our Government owned CSIRO & ANSTO whilst inventing new substances generally license off shore manufacture/sale which frankly is another subject!

Naturally, if the potential sales volume of a new industrial chemical is such that the cost of accreditation under NICNAS legislation cannot be recovered in a reasonable time then that substance is not submitted to NICNAS for accreditation, thereby removing the opportunity for that substance to be used by the Australian manufacturing industry. It matters not that the new substance is in use and accredited within, say, Europe, the USA or Japan—that substance must still be accredited for use by NICNAS or it cannot be imported or used in Australia.

It is absolutely ridiculous to think that other countries have unacceptable accreditation processes and that Australia is correct in reinventing the wheel. Even new industrial chemicals rather than the substance being replaced must be subjected to NICNAS with the same costs and delays. Similarly, new industrial chemicals that would be far more acceptable environmentally must be accredited by NICNAS. Whilst the application fee for accreditation might be considered modest, the total cost to the applicant to develop and provide all the NICNAS required data is put at around $200,000 per substance as well as a totally unacceptable time period.

In the years now that NICNAS has been in place in Australia not one worker’s or consumer’s life has been spared, nor has any other upside been detected, but there are many examples of Australian manufacturers shifting their manufacturing jobs offshore because of NICNAS and leaving behind products of old technology that cannot compete in international markets let alone contribute to a better Australia—a true dumbing down of our industry at the same time as reducing our manufacturing.

Technically speaking, it is illegal to import an item that contains an ingredient that is not listed on the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances, but in reality NICNAS has neither the knowledge nor the resources to police such matters. Hence you find biodegradable plastic bags being imported and used while the very resin polymer from which they are made cannot be imported for use in Australia by plastic bag makers. I have not heard anything so ridiculous—the finished product can be produced overseas and be imported into Australia but Australian manufacturers cannot buy the resin polymer whereby they could make those same bags in Australia. Manufacturers, as a proportion of GDP, have reached a low level.

The letter from ROAM says that there are groups of Australians who have some real problems, that there are anachronisms and obstacles to their productivity and that they are all caused by the difficulties they confront with the processes adopted by NICNAS. The letter finishes by referring to the Productivity Commission inquiry into NICNAS and says that, in spite of Professor Bell’s recommendations, there have been taskforces established but with guidelines that do not allow consideration of the elimination of the NICNAS legislation or the development of a viable alternative.

The letters go on over a period of time in much the same vein, but one of the most revealing factors was in a letter of April this year from ROAM. They go into some of the details of this legislation, which is always presented as a simplification of the process but seems to end up costing more and taking more time. They go on to say that they do represent manufacturers and have a knowledge of the industry but they do not claim to represent chemical manufacturers. Claims of simplified accreditation by NICNAS is a smokescreen as is the cost-recovery argument. The facts are that Australia NICNAS is leading the world in the disastrous race to overregulate all aspects of business. We simply cannot afford such ill-conceived concepts, especially schemes like NICNAS.

It is important to note that, when NICNAS was first foisted on Australian industry, a line was drawn which effectively grandfathered some 138,000 substances. NICNAS has assessed a small number of these grandfathered substances and caused, to our knowledge, none to be banned. The fact that only 3,000 or so new substances have been accredited by NICNAS since its inception and that Europe now has 110,000 accredited substances shows why Australian manufacturing jobs are moving offshore: they cannot compete.

I think that is the nub of the problem. Even though there was a grandfathering proposal for some 38,000 substances, there has only been, according to ROAM, a few thousand more added to that, whilst in Europe—and we know how stringent the green requirements are in Europe—some 110,000 accredited substances can be used by European manufacturers. This seems a strange inconsistency and yet we keep pursuing it. Letter after letter, response after response say we are protecting the Australian people. Can we seriously argue that Europeans are unprotected? Can we seriously argue that the regimes of the greens in Germany, of the Left in France and of all the activists that are so often on the television screens across Europe have been ineffective in persuading their governments to protect their communities? I think not. I think that those political forces in Europe have been extremely effective and in some instances have gone beyond what is required by Australian authorities.

In the chemical manufacturing industry and the provision of chemicals—which is such an important part of the manufacturing industry in general, whether it be in steel, plastics, food products or day-to-day things such as cosmetics—Australia needs to get its act together. We cannot compete by regulation. We must not compete in the regulatory field, saying that we are 10 years ahead of Europe in restrictive legislation. If the Europeans can approve 110,000 products for use in chemical manufacture and Australia cannot get much over 40,000, then we are suffering a huge disadvantage. The chemicals that we are missing out on are the newest ones, the most advantageous ones, the ones that are going to create the greatest benefit and, most often, the ones that are far less deleterious than the ones currently in use.

That process which I have just read to the House is described by the ROAM organisation, a group of seriously minded Australians who do not want to slash and burn all the legislation and regulation. They are reasonable people who want to see Australia advance but be safe at the same time. They have families and consider their families. When one reads their correspondence one cannot help but understand the heart and soul of these people and their interest in Australian jobs, Australian families and Australian opportunities and that this process limits our access to new products and new chemicals to less than half that the rest of the world uses. That puts us completely in the hands of overseas manufacturers. It is a reverse tariff process. It is giving them a tariff advantage, if you like, by the regulation of imports into Australia instead of having Australia compete. It is ridiculous.

I have not had a reasonable response from anybody on this issue. Of course, from a ministerial point of view, it is no good blaming the ministers because when dealing with chemicals—none of us are experts in chemical manufacturing or the danger of various chemicals—how can a minister possibly assess this as more dangerous than something else? So a minister must listen to experts. A minister must be guided by what he or she is told by a range of people skilled in these affairs who can make the appropriate assessment.

The stark fact is that we are at a disadvantage, and I want to know why. Why can we not use the same amount of chemicals in our manufacturing industries as they can in Europe? Why do we have to draw a barrier and say that in Australia the climate, the soil and everything else is so different that we cannot accept European or American standards? We do in human products. In human products the TGA has a very different and much better system to this. A lot of Australian chemical manufacturers say, ‘If only we could have a chemical manufacturers TGA we’d be a lot better off,’ because the rigour that is imposed on them, the slowness and the cost excels that of the TGA. That is their most rigid and solid criticism of what goes on in this industry. My colleague Wilson Tuckey dealt with some of the veterinary chemical industry issues that have been matters of discussion over the last few weeks. That is a different area of regulation, but many similar problems are imposed upon us there.

I would appeal to those administering NICNAS and to those in authority who look over this area to look at these regulations and say: ‘Let’s adopt a more reasonable and practical approach but one that is safe and one that is secure for the wellbeing of Australian families. Let’s not ditch Australian manufacturing and Australian jobs simply because we’re slow or cautious or just because we want to do our own thing which is different to the rest of the world.’

De-Anne Kelly (Dawson, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank members for their contributions to the debate on the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Cosmetics) Bill 2007. As has been noted, the bill has two objectives. Firstly, the bill presents amendments that deliver on the government’s commitment to reforming the regulation of cosmetics, creating a long-term, sustainable and competitive advantage for the cosmetics industry while ensuring the continuing safeguard of health, safety and environmental standards.

While the ingredients in cosmetics have been regulated by NICNAS as industrial chemicals for quite some time, the bill represents an extension of the existing approach by enabling the minister to make standards for cosmetic products as a whole that are imported into or manufactured in Australia. This puts in place reforms agreed to by government in November 2005 that have been implemented on an administrative basis since early 2006. The approach adopted will deliver greater clarity and certainty for industry and capacity for NICNAS to take action in the event of non-compliance and ensuring the protection of public health, occupational health and safety and the environment.

The second objective achieved by the bill is the making of minor technical amendments to the act to provide clarity and consistency within the act. These proposed minor amendments will have no significant impact on business, do not place any restriction on competition and do not place any significant additional requirements on the industrial chemicals industry.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the strong support of all stakeholders for the proposed amendments and their ongoing cooperation and assistance in the development of the bill. As a result of this collaborative approach adopted by government, industry and other stakeholders, I believe we have been able to achieve a very well considered and appropriate piece of amending legislation.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.