All-Australian food label panel okay with minister

Kate Wilkinson. Photo / Martin Sykes

Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson has indicated she will raise no objections if the panel to conduct a transtasman review of food labelling laws is composed entirely of Australians.

As New Zealand's sole member of the transtasman Food Regulation Ministerial Council, which is dominated by Australian states, Ms Wilkinson gets to vote on the membership of the panel.

The council has appointed the panel chairman, a former Australian Health Minister, but has not yet announced the full membership.

When asked yesterday if she would be happy without a New Zealander on the panel, Ms Wilkinson said, "I think the important issue is the expertise on the panel.

"Whatever the review's outcomes are, we will then have the opportunity to pick up the results of that review or perhaps opt out."

She said the ability to opt out of transtasman food standards, as the Government had done over the mandatory fortification of bread with folic acid, showed that New Zealand retained its sovereignty in the regulation of food.

Ms Wilkinson was responding to the objection of Greens health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley, published in the Herald yesterday, to the likely omission of New Zealand representation on the panel and Ms Kedgley's view that this reinforced the country's loss of sovereignty on food standards.

Ms Wilkinson said the Government had invited the panel to New Zealand so it could get local business and consumer perspectives.

When asked if the review panel would hold public hearings in New Zealand, she said, "Those details are still to be worked out."