ORGANICS SENATE INQUIRY
The Federal Member for Dawson, Andrew Willcox is encouraging local organic growers and providers to make a submission for the Senate inquiry into the National Organic Standard Bill 2024.
The Senate has referred the Bill to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 31 January, 2025.
The inquiry is on the back of the Coalition’s common-sense legislation, ensuring organic products being sold and consumed across the domestic and export markets are actually organic.
“The Coalition introduced the Bill for a National Organic Standard to manage domestic organic products and the import of organic products into Australia,” Andrew Willcox said.
“It defies logic that organic products currently aren’t required to be certified or comply with any particular organic standard, but can still call themselves organic.”
Chief Commercial Officer of Australian Consolidated Milk Ryan Reynolds said domestic regulation of the term ‘organic’ is long overdue and would have an immediate positive impact for brands locally, improving trust and consumer confidence for organic dairy.
“For the organic sector, regulating the term ‘organic’ can start to enable export equivalence discussions and arrangements to be formed with key premium markets,” Mr Reynolds said.
“This is the single biggest opportunity to grow the sector, as access to premium markets means additional value is created and shared with our organic dairy farmer suppliers, that in turn, creates a very healthy, profitable and sustainable industry.
“Our products have a loyal following in Australia, and with greater access to export markets, there is great opportunity for growth that will benefit the entire supply chain. I would encourage everyone within the organic industry to support The Bill with submissions or letters of support.”
Australia is the last nation in the OECD to not have a regulatory framework for the use of the word ‘organic’.
The former Coalition government had started a pathway to setting an Australian standard for the organics industry, worth over $2 billion annually, by setting up an industry-led advisory group, which laid down the pathway to complete this reform in 2020.
“Labor’s lack of action has resulted in an unworkable and costly dual system, where products for export and the domestic market are subject to different standards,” Andrew Willcox said.
“Products in Australia can claim to be organic with as little as two per cent of the ingredients being certified organic. In comparison, organic products sold for export require 95 per cent organic ingredients.”
The Federal Member for Dawson added the Trading North, Inquiry into the role of Australian agriculture in Southeast Asian Markets recommends reviewing the domestic regulatory framework to ensure its alignment with current international standards and potential rival jurisdictions, including mechanisms within the framework to define and regulate organic products within Australia’s domestic market.
To make a submission go to the Parliament of Australia website: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/OnlineSubmission