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Thursday, 23 June 2011
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Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (10:05): It is my great pleasure to rise to make a contribution in this debate on the Food Standards Amendment (Truth in Labelling—Palm Oil) Bill 2010. Senator Minchin said in his valedictory speech a few nights ago that he had little imagined when he came to Canberra that he would spend so much time discussing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. I might say, in a similar vein, that I had no idea when I was elected to the Senate that I would be addressing this place on the subject of palm oil. But such is life.

As it happens, this is a subject that has come to be of interest to me, both because of work I did previously in the foreign affairs, defence and trade committee, considering the questions of development, poverty and security in the Pacific. That is a constellation of issues that continues to be of interest to me with my defence responsibilities. And this is an aspect of this debate that I will return to.

Senator Xenophon's private member's bill seeks to amend the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act 1991 to require Food Standards Australia New Zealand to develop and approve mandatory labelling standards which would require all food producers and manufacturers and distributors of food to label all products that contain palm oil. The bill also requires that where what is described as 'certified sustainable palm oil' is used, this is to be labelled 'CS palm oil' to indicate its sustainable origins. The purpose of this bill is therefore to require the mandatory labelling of palm oil and to encourage the use of palm oil from sus­tainable sources. Let me say at the outset that I recognise Senator Xenophon's good intentions in presenting this bill. He is genuinely concerned about the threat that the destruction of native rainforest habitat in Indonesia for palm oil plantations poses to wildlife, particularly the orangutan. The orangutan is currently threatened with extinction and this is an emotive issue that has gained quite a bit of traction in the broader community. Senator Xenophon believes that this bill will give Australian consumers the ability to choose whether or not to buy products which contain palm oil and that it will also reward those who produce palm oil in a sustainable way by the means of the CS palm oil label to which I referred.

I share—indeed, the government shares—Senator Xenophon's concerns about environmental degradation and unsustainable agricultural practices, whether they be found in Indonesia or anywhere else in our region. We are all aware of the acute danger posed by uncontrolled land clearance, whether it be for palm oil plantations or for any other purpose—

Senator Xenophon: Madam Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: Senator Feeney keeps referring to this as simply my bill. It is a bill moved jointly with Senator Brown. I think the record should be corrected.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Pratt ) (10:08): That is not a point of order, Senator Xenophon, but I am sure the senator will take your comments into account.

Senator FEENEY: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President, and I think that is a fine reflection on Senator Xenophon's resolve to share the credit for this endeavour. Returning to the subject, we are all aware of the dangers of uncontrolled land clearance, whether it be in Indonesia or anywhere else in our region, and it is an issue of signal importance that legislators in this parliament should be mindful of, because it is having increasing and devastating effects on Pacific Island nations in particular.

In February 2007, the United Nations Environment Program produced a report titled The last stand of the orangutan. According to the report, the natural forests of Sumatra and Borneo are being cleared at such a fast rate that they will be totally destroyed by 2022. These forests are the last surviving habitat for the orangutan and for other endangered species such as the Sumatran rhino and the Sumatran tiger. The clearing of rainforest for palm oil plantations is also very harmful in terms of its impact on climate change. When rainforests are drained and cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, their peat-filled soils dry out and release large amounts of methane. Methane is, of course, a greenhouse gas that is many times more dangerous than carbon dioxide in terms of its global warming impact. Peat soils are highly susceptible to long-burning fires that emit large quantities of carbon. Illegally-lit peatland fires in Borneo have for many years now been identified as one of the largest global sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

For all of these reasons, our regional development aid program has a very strong focus on supporting sustainable agricultural practices. AusAID and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research spent over $100 million a year on this work, with over 200 bilateral projects in developing countries across the Asia-Pacific region. I think that really does tell the story about a set of issues that are and should continue to be of great importance to all of us.

The question about this bill, then, is not intentions but whether it will actually help to achieve its objectives—objectives which, I think, all sides of this Senate are in agreement on. The question is whether this bill might have unforeseen harmful conse­quences. This bill seeks to use the food standards regime to achieve an objective which is not related to food standards. That is, in and of itself, a public policy question we should deliberate on carefully. There is nothing intrinsically harmful about the small amounts of palm oil which are commonly used in many processed foods. Senator Xenophon wants foods labelled to show the presence of palm oil not because palm oil is in itself hazardous but because he is trying to achieve an environmental purpose. The purpose of food standards law is to protect consumers against potentially hazardous foods and to allow them to make informed choices about what they and their families eat. It is essentially a health law. To use the food standards law to achieve an environ­mental objective—in this case an environ­mental objective in one or more countries—sets a potentially dangerous precedent, and this Senate should understand full well what it is about to embark upon.

The bill pre-empts a government response to the recommendations of the Blewett food labelling review. Recommendation 12 of that review recommends, on public health grounds, the labelling of all types of saturated fats, which would include palm oil. Of course, when the issue of saturated fats in foods is considered from a health point of view, what is relevant is the level of such fats in any given product. Senator Xenophon's bill, on the other hand, requires that palm oil must be listed as an ingredient regardless of the amount used in a food product or used to produce that food product. This will be seen in the broader food industry as imposing an unreasonable burden on food producers, particularly those who use only very small amounts of palm oil in their products.

There is a further issue of consideration here and, in reflecting on it, I note that in a recent visit to the Solomon Islands I had the opportunity to visit some palm oil plantations and to make some preliminary observations about how they came to be there. The Solomon Islands is a country that is our immediate neighbour, and it is a country that is of signal importance to this country. It is a country that we have been working with since 2003 through the RAMSI program—the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. That is a whole-of-government exercise that has been a focus for government since 2003. It is a sad matter of fact that it is estimated that by something like 2015 the once-enormous forest resources of the Solomon Islands will be exhausted. The deforestation, the unsustainable logging that has wrought such extraordinary destruction in that country, has continued unabated since the 1980s. It means that the forest resources of that country, which are, I think, at present its greatest earner, will soon be lost for the foreseeable future. In considering this enormous environmental destruction, we also must consider the fact that countries like the Solomon Islands—and this is unfortunately typical of many Pacific Island nations—are struggling financially, and have large and increasingly urbanised populations that endure very high levels of unemployment. That systemic unemploy­ment in their urban landscapes has become one of several factors that have often led to dangerous security implications for those countries and those countries' governments.

I think we would all imagine that, in a country like the Solomon Islands, palm oil production and palm oil plantations may offer one industry which the islands can engage in and embrace and which can produce valuable employment and financial opportunities. I am very concerned that, as we ventilate these issues and consider this bill and these sorts of measures, we do not prevent poor countries that have already experienced dramatic levels of deforestation from pursuing legitimate and important economic opportunities. Those are things Australia wants for countries like the Solomon Islands; those are of course things that the Solomon Islands government wants to pursue.

As we pursue these questions about palm oil, let's remember—as Senator Ryan mentioned briefly—that palm oil is not itself an intrinsically destructive product. It is often produced by economies that are poor, struggling and need development oppor­tunities. If we pursue a course of action that has us vilify the food in its entirety, then we will not be doing orangutans a service insomuch as we will be destroying the economic opportunities of poor and developing economies.