ANZFA Annual Report 1999-2000

( full version available in pdf format only)

Managing Director’s Foreword

Review of the Food Standards Code

The 1999–2000 financial year has in many ways been a year of review. It saw the completion of our most ambitious task to date — the review of all the current food regulations in Australia and New Zealand and the incorporation of the outcomes of the review into a draft Joint Food Standards Code for both countries. This was a huge task. I am not aware of any national food regulatory agency that has ever attempted such a fundamental review of its food standards, and there are certainly none that have done this for two countries.

In drafting the new Code, our emphasis has been at all times to make decisions based on sound science and the most up-to-date evidence available, in Australia, New Zealand and internationally, to satisfy our primary objective — to protect public health and safety. We have also recognised that the standards must be practical and not impose unnecessary costs on food manufacturers with the inevitable flow-on to consumer prices.

The new draft Code removes a great many prescriptive requirements that serve no purpose in protecting consumers but which add to the cost of producing food and, therefore, to prices. It also embodies the results of reviews of additive and contaminant permissions and other such aspects to ensure that they reflect contemporary knowledge of what levels are safe over a lifetime of consumption. These changes should help to improve the safety of our food supply. To reinforce this, the draft Code also introduces a number of mandatory labelling standards including the requirement to identify all food containing those ingredients which cause most allergic reactions. Labelling requirements are also greatly strengthened in two other ways. Firstly, it will be mandatory for almost all manufactured foods to carry a nutrition information panel to provide consumers with information on the level of fats, protein, energy (kilojoules), carbohydrates and sodium. This will help consumers to make healthier food choices. Secondly, to help give consumers the capacity to make informed choices about the key ingredients in their food, it will be compulsory for composite foods to show the percentage of the defining or characterising ingredients in their food, such as the apple in apple pie or the cocoa in chocolate.

It is important that the Joint Code is viewed in its entirety. There are, and always will be, elements of the Code that don’t appeal to some individuals or groups, as is inevitable when such diverse interests are involved. The Joint Code is intended to serve the interests of the whole communities of Australia and New Zealand — not just particular industry or community groups. It is intended to meet the overall, collective best interests of all without doing so to the detriment of any one. In my view, it will provide a better regulatory environment.

Food Safety Reforms

While I am pleased with the progress on the food standards aspects of the new Code, I am disappointed with the slow progress in the implementation of the proposed food safety reforms.

Views expressed by representatives of many of the 75 nations at the World Conference of Food Trade in Melbourne last October and the emphasis now being placed on food safety initiatives by the World Health Organisation and by Codex, leave little doubt that the world now sees this as a serious issue. It is time that those groups that have campaigned to slow the progress of the reforms realised that food-borne disease is a costly and preventable form of illness, which can only be reduced through fundamental changes such as those that ANZFA has proposed. This issue is not only a threat to public health and safety, it also threatens the reputation of our food and of Australia as a safe tourist destination. Any business that causes an outbreak of food borne illness can expect to lose its market and risk its continued existence.

Labelling of Genetically Modified (GM) Foods

Recent WHO and Codex meetings I attended confirmed that food regulators everywhere are grappling with the issue of the labelling of genetically modified food. There is a growing recognition, world wide, among manufacturers, governments and other stakeholders that consumers both desire and have a right to know whether the food they are eating contains genetically modified elements. Unfortunately, the complex nature of our food chain means that this is not as simple as placing labels on packages and jars. Many GM components have been present in processed foods for decades, and some processing aids and additives are there in such minute quantities that detection is expensive and difficult and in some cases virtually impossible. These are difficult issues for regulatory decision-makers.

ANZFA’s funding

I am pleased that our resource base is now much sounder than it has ever been following the decision of the Australian Government to increase our funding by $A26.1 million over the next four years. The Australia – New Zealand Treaty provides for a commensurate contribution from New Zealand. I see this as recognition of the growing importance of food regulation by government and of community concerns about food safety issues.

This funding stability will help to improve our approach to forward planning and our involvement with our stakeholders in our regulatory processes — initiatives identified by the Board as important priorities. It will also ease pressure on those staff members of ANZFA who have been working very long hours to ensure that ANZFA achieves its goals — not only in those areas I have mentioned in this message, but also in the day-to-day maintenance of food safety and certainty in Australia.

Internal review of ANZFA

The extremely high workload for ANZFA staff over the past year showed up some imbalances in the workload across the organisation with some staff being subjected to very intense work pressures.

The increased funding will help alleviate these problems but we also conducted a structural review of the organisation to balance the workload more effectively. The review showed that while major changes to ANZFA’s organisational structure were not required, adjustments were needed to avoid aggravating the pressures on middle and senior management and to give greater attention to some important work for which we had previously lacked the resources.

Work on nutrition and labelling has been a particularly fast-growing area and one of the main changes has been to split these functions into a separate program, leaving responsibility for compositional standards in the Product Standards Program. The coordinating role (receiving applications, monitoring progress etc) will be located within the new Nutrition and Labelling Program.

Responsibility for microbiological standards, including any applications that are predominantly microbiological in nature, has moved to the Food Safety Standards Program. The microbiological standards have a very close link to the safety standards as they set the ultimate goals and acceptable levels as outcomes of the measures required by the food safety standards.

Similarly, the responsibility for Maximum Residue Limits standards has been moved to the Monitoring and Surveillance Program (now called Monitoring and Evaluation) which already had the chemicals function. This should ensure proper coordination in our relationships with the National Registration Authority for Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals. The Monitoring and Evaluation Program will also be developing and complementing a three-year evaluation plan to ensure that all major scientific regulatory issues are reviewed for relevance, currency and effectiveness on a regular basis.

There have also been some changes at the executive level to balance the workload of our General Managers and to give extra support to our Chief Scientist. Our coordinating and information sharing committees have also been strengthened. (For more information, see Corporate Overview and organisation chart).

External reviews of ANZFA

In addition to our own review of ANZFA’s structure, there are external reviews involving food regulation which, while not under our control, have the potential for considerable impact on our work.

The report of the Blair Review was presented to the Prime Minister in August 1998. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Council (ANZFSC) was then asked to prepare a response the Review report from the point of view of the health portfolios. Agriculture ministers were asked to do the same. A working group was established with senior representatives from Commonwealth, State and Territory health departments for which ANZFA provided the secretariat. ANZFSC considered the report of the Working Group and finalised its response in June 1999. This is now being considered, together with the agriculture ministers’ response, by the COAG Senior Officials’ Working Group on Food Regulation to develop an inter-governmental response to the Blair Review.

A review of the structure of public health and safety regulation was announced in the 2000-2001 Commonwealth Budget. A Regulation Review Taskforce has been set up in the Department of Health and Aged Care to consider opportunities to produce better coordination of regulatory policy and more effective administrative arrangements in the area of public health and safety. The Taskforce will report to the Commonwealth Government in the latter part of 2000 on ways of achieving greater coordination and efficiency across the various regulatory bodies. This has the potential for improved efficiency and consistency in regulatory arrangements and better service to the community.

1999–2000 Annual Report

This year’s report is, for the first time, divided into functional rather than organisational areas. I believe that this provides a more concise and coordinated report, which I hope is easier for the reader to follow. The report also includes some case studies on particular issues during the year. These are designed to give more of an insight into, not only what we have done, but also how we have gone about doing it.

Ian Lindenmayer

Managing Director