Food Regulation Secretariat

Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council (Ministerial Council) have agreed to undertake a comprehensive review of food labelling law and policy.

The Ministerial Council on 23 October 2009 announced that former Australian Health Minister, Dr Neal Blewett AC, will head up the Panel which will undertake a comprehensive examination of food labelling law and policy. Dr Blewett was a pioneer of Australia’s universal Medicare health system and is a strong advocate for the rights of consumers.

Dr Blewett will be joined on the panel by public health law academic Dr Chris Reynolds, economic and consumer behaviour expert Dr Simone Pettigrew, food and nutrition policy academic Associate Professor Heather Yeatman, and food industry communications, marketing and corporate affairs professional Nick Goddard. Brief biographies of all of the panel members is attached Members of Food labelling Law and Policy Review Panel (PDF 119 KB).

The Terms of Reference of the review have been endorsed by the Ministerial Council and are now publicly released. A PDF version of the review is attached Terms of Reference (PDF 18 KB). For the purposes of this Review, the term “food labelling” includes information, representations and claims about food.

The Food Labelling Law and Policy Review Committee is committed to ensuring that the review considers all relevant issues, and as such on 26 October 2009 a call was made for individuals and organisations to make brief submissions about labelling issues the panel should consider, within the scope of the terms of reference. This initial submissions round was designed to identify issues that the public would like to be considered as part of the review, and stakeholders were asked to provide data, evidence and/or documentation to support their views, where possible. This round closed on 20 November 2009 and over 5500 submissions were received. The Committee is currently reviewing these submissions.

The Food Labelling Law and Policy Review Committee held its first meeting on Wednesday 25 November 2009 and the communiqué from this meeting is attached. Communiqué from Meeting 1 – 25 November 2009 (PDF 12 KB)

The second meeting was held on Thursday 17 December 2009 and the communique from this meeting is attached. Communiqué Meeting 17 December 2009 (PDF 11 KB)

If you are having trouble downloading the above PDF please email the FoodLabellingReview@health.gov.au for a Word document version.