Australia moots changing food labelling bill to reflect country of origin

Under a Greens proposal which went before the Australian federal parliament today, country-of-origin labelling on food packaging would detail where the food was grown and produced, not where it was  packaged.

The bill seeks to change current laws, under which some foods are labelled "Made in Australia" when the food was grown overseas and re-packaged in the country.

Greens MP Adam Bandt read the bill, which is due for a second hearing tomorrow in the House of Representatives today.

Under prevailing laws, if more than half of the packaging costs are incurred in Australia and goods have been substantially processed in the country, regardless of the origin of the basic produce, the item could be labelled ''made in'', which also included other labels such as ''manufactured in'' or ''Australian-made''.

A review of Australia and New Zealand's food labelling laws called for any food bearing some form of Australian claim, ''a consumer-friendly, food-specific country-of-origin labelling framework, based primarily on the ingoing weight of the ingredients and components (excluding water)'' be developed.

According to Greens leader Christine Milne, Australians wanted to know where the food they bought to feed their families was actually grown, but they did not know as current made in labels could not be trusted.