The Federal Government has used a general review of food labelling standards to pass an application to irradiate food in Australia.
Tim Mulherin (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Regional Economies) informs us that Application A 1038 is currently “the subject of a Federal Court judicial review procedure” and that he can't comment on the expansion of food irradiation in Australia and New Zealand and the weakening of labelling requirements.”
What is occurring is that the application to irradiate persimmons was passed by the Food Safety Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and surreptitously included a general review of food labelling standards.
Gene-Ethics has iniated a legal challenge in the Federal Court - “We believe FSANZ hid its review, that weakens irradiated food labelling and record-keeping, within a Queensland Government application to irradiate persimmons (A1038),” says Gene Ethics Director Bob Phelps. In our view, FSANZ should have published its proposed general review of food irradiation standard 1.5.3, separate from the irradiation of persimmons and advised the public accordingly.
Now, belatedly: "FSANZ has amended the description of the Application in the Work Plan and for any future references to the description/purpose of this Application." Bob Phelps states that this does not go far enough and we challenge FSANZ to reprocess the applications separately.
As a consequence of this stealth, Scott Kinnear, Safe Food Institute Director, claims that his organisation missed out on making a submission on changes to the irradiation standard and say that FSANZ should have advertised its proposal separately,” says the Safe Food Institute Director, Scott Kinnear.
From Gene-Ethics
What is occurring is that the application to irradiate persimmons was passed by the Food Safety Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and surreptitously included a general review of food labelling standards.
Gene-Ethics has iniated a legal challenge in the Federal Court - “We believe FSANZ hid its review, that weakens irradiated food labelling and record-keeping, within a Queensland Government application to irradiate persimmons (A1038),” says Gene Ethics Director Bob Phelps. In our view, FSANZ should have published its proposed general review of food irradiation standard 1.5.3, separate from the irradiation of persimmons and advised the public accordingly.
Now, belatedly: "FSANZ has amended the description of the Application in the Work Plan and for any future references to the description/purpose of this Application." Bob Phelps states that this does not go far enough and we challenge FSANZ to reprocess the applications separately.
As a consequence of this stealth, Scott Kinnear, Safe Food Institute Director, claims that his organisation missed out on making a submission on changes to the irradiation standard and say that FSANZ should have advertised its proposal separately,” says the Safe Food Institute Director, Scott Kinnear.
From Gene-Ethics
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