Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the Nick Xenophon Team and Senator Kakoschke-Moore in particular for bringing forward the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Truth in Labelling—Palm Oil) Bill 2017. I think it's an interesting, timely and important debate for us to have. I have to say that you learn a lot by becoming an Australian senator. There are certain topics and issues that perhaps weren't the kinds of experiences that you may have had prior to coming into this place. I note that Senator Rice was outlining her experiences, having visited some of the areas that have been deforested, and the horrible things that palm oil has done to those communities. My own experiences with palm oil are nowhere near as serious or as significant. My understanding of it prior to coming into this chamber was as a product that my relatives used to put in their hair from time to time, and that created a devastation of its own kind, though nowhere near equivalent! That was a joke, Senator Rice. You're allowed to laugh now!

The intention of this bill I think is a good one. The intention of this bill is to draw attention and try and give consumers the power to make informed decisions when it comes to something like palm oil, being very conscious of the impact that it has in South-East Asia. That, as a point of principle, I think is quite a powerful one. In a strange way, I would even go so far as to say that I know others in the past, like Senator Leyonhjelm, with a strong libertarian perspective, have always supported the principle and the idea that people should be able to make informed decisions for themselves and that it leads to better outcomes when people are able to make those decisions.

The question, though, isn't whether or not those of us here believe that what is happening in the deforestation in South-East Asia is a good thing. Obviously it's not. The debate here is not about whether or not consumers should have as much information as possible and a broad right to know. I believe there is a universal view that informed consumers make better consumers and that people have the right to have an understanding so they can make decisions for themselves. But I do worry, I really worry, when we start going down the path of using labelling as the solution to everything, as a kind of very easy fix that we place on things, which is, 'If this is just labelled this way or that's labelled this way, then everything's going to be okay.' In fact, one could easily argue that there are a huge series of complexities with labelling, putting aside the many intersecting federal and state rules, regulations, agreements, laws, harmonisation and labelling structures that go on. Putting all that aside, there is also the point, worth making, that, when we place too much information in a lot of these labelling processes, we end up with a result in which the consumer ends up being less, not more, informed.

We found this where I spent a lot of my time in the Senate, working with financial services and financial service disclosures. I note that Senator Bushby, who also worked on these matters over a long period of time, was well aware that part of what we all, in a bipartisan manner, realised was wrong with the financial services industry wasn't that we weren't putting the obligation on companies to provide enough information; it was that so much information was being provided. People were getting 20- or 30-page disclosure statements that were incomprehensible and meaningless. That sense of overdisclosure, the tactic of 'snowing' people with information, actually made it more difficult for people to make informed choices and informed decisions.

I worry that it's sometimes a very, very easy fix, especially for politicians, to say: 'Just label it better. The issue's always going to be labelling. It's going to be simple; it's going to be labelling.' There are obviously challenges around labelling, but—and this is the debate—taking something like this one issue in isolation and treating it differently, breaking down the complicated processes we already have in place, the complicated structures, the complicated systems, the interweaving of federal and state relations when it comes to labelling, simply because we decide that this one issue of palm oil is particularly one that we're going to address, I think it opens a Pandora's box. I really do.

It worries me that we're making a series of special cases for this one product. If this were going to be presented as part of a broader debate—through the COAG process or through other formal processes for us to be able to have a debate within a broad structure—it is something that could be supported. I don't believe that what is happening here achieves the objectives that are wanted.

I note something that Senator Farrell said earlier, because I think it's the most important point here. It is that this bill just won't work. Under section 134 of schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, the act this bill seeks to amend, the minister already has the power to make the information standard that Senator Xenophon's bill describes. That section clearly says

Making information standards for goods and services

(1) The Commonwealth Minister may, by written notice published on the internet, make an information standard—

Then it goes through and explains that. I urge anyone who is interested to google it.

So there are steps that can be taken. I do have my own concerns about the path we have chosen to take. While very legitimate points are being made about deforestation and its consequences, and about making sure that Australian people are aware of the consequences of using palm oil, I don't believe this bill achieves the objectives that it sets out to. Nonetheless, I think the fact that we are debating these issues in the Senate and that we are raising awareness should be congratulated. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.