Food Amendment (Public Information on Offences) Bill 2008
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: I speak on the Food Amendment (Public Information on Offences) Bill 2008, which amends the Act to, first, extend the power of the New South Wales Food Authority to publish information about convictions under the Act, including information about persons who are convicted for offences related to the sale and handling of food by permitting the New South Wales Food Authority to keep a register of offences that must be available for public inspection on an Internet website; second, to give the New South Wales Food Authority power to publish information in the register about persons found guilty by the court and in respect of whom no conviction is entered of offences under the Act related to the handling or sale of food; third, to give the New South Wales Food Authority power to also publish information, subject to certain limitations, about penalty notices issued for offences under the Act and the names of the persons who are served with them relating to the sale and handling of food, by permitting the authority to keep a register of penalty notices which may also be available for public inspection on the authority’s website; and, fourth, to provide a limitation of liability in respect to the disclosure of such information.
I congratulate the New South Wales Food Authority and the Government on the Food Amendment (Public Information on Offences) Bill 2008, but I make some points about it. I support the bill as a positive step towards transparency on food safety. Ensuring the safety of our food supply is an essential part of protecting and promoting the health of the community. Food is the most fundamental of needs and the New South Wales community has a right to expect that their food will be safe. Food safety guarantees a healthy and therefore more productive society. It reduces sickness in the community and reduces the load placed upon hospitals and other medical resources.
The Government cannot remain complacent about food safety when cases of food-borne illness continue to increase in the community. The very young and the very elderly can suffer serious or life-threatening illness as a result of food poisoning. Recent food law breaches by food business exposed by the media have led to food safety being a paramount issue for all consumers. I note that a number of members have spoken about the coronial inquest that found that 81-year-old William Hodgins died just hours after he had eaten fish with an asparagus cream-based sauce. There have been many details about this in the press and I understand this matter is still before the court. Because that matter is still sub judice I think it is appropriate that we should not be speaking about it at this time. I would suggest, Mr President, that you indicate to members your ruling on that matter. I will not refer to it in detail because I think to do so would be in contravention of our present standing orders.
In July last year the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that a sushi factory had been fined 11 times and closed twice but the public was never told. I took a particular interest in the case at the time and searched for further information but it was not published. The name and shame register to identify businesses that breach food laws has been established only to contain a chicken shop and a distiller that sold under-strength scotch whisky. Nine months on there is not a single restaurant on the website. There are incidents such as 274 cases of hepatitis A linked to the consumption of Wallace Lake oysters recorded in New South Wales in early 1997. One person died and Australia wide some 440 cases were reported. In South Australia in 1995 contaminated metwurst caused serious and in some cases life-threatening illnesses to 23 young children—sadly one child died of food poisoning.
Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted and set down as an order of the day for a later hour.
Debate resumed from an earlier hour.
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: I had indicated that there were other incidences, such as the 274 cases of hepatitis A linked to the consumption of Wallis Lake oysters that were recorded in New South Wales in early 1997. One person died because of this contamination and Australia-wide some 440 cases were reported. In 1995 in South Australia contaminated mettwurst caused serious and in some cases life-threatening illnesses in 23 very young children. Sadly, one child died of that food poisoning. The direct cost to health authorities and the industry of that 1995 mettwurst incident was put conservatively at $20 million. Food poisoning outbreaks can be very expensive indeed.
Earlier I indicated that a coronial inquest found that 81-year-old William Hodgins died just hours after he had eaten the fish of the day with an asparagus cream-based sauce that had fatally high levels of the toxic pathogen bacillus cerus at an award-winning Sydney restaurant at Pymble on the night of 12 January 2007. Over the lunchbreak I had the opportunity to talk with the President and look up precedents on this matter. I realise that because no jury is involved, even though the case is sub judice, we are able to talk about the facts of the matter. Therefore, whatever we say now will not influence the outcome of the case in a few weeks time when penalties are handed down.
The Division of Analytical Laboratories carried out tests on the asparagus sauce after Mr Hodgins’ death and found the presence of bacillus cerus at 9.8 million parts per 10 million parts. That is 10 times the amount of bacillus that is normally considered toxic. According to the inquest, the build-up of bacteria could have been caused by the sauce being left out on a bench in a 30 degree Celsius kitchen for up to seven hours and possibly reheated and refrigerated a number of times over a 48-hour period. I do not believe this restaurant would be the only one where food has been reheated and re-presented over long hours. In fact, from cases reported in the press recently, food obtained in fast-food outlets, particularly those at service stations, could be quite questionable when it comes to health issues.
All these tragic incidents are a reminder that food safety requires constant surveillance and effort if food-borne illness is to be reduced. Food regulation must be responsive to the challenges of technological, social, environmental and economic change. I share community concerns that the bill needs to go further to ensure the food industry is open and accountable. There are ethical, social and economic reasons to inform the public about the safety of food available for consumption. According to the consumer watchdog Choice, which I consulted, about 5.4 million cases of sickness are reported in Australia each year, most of which are caused by the consumption of food prepared outside the home, mainly at restaurants or fast-food outlets. Food poisoning can cause pain and suffering, burden health resources and lead to loss of working days. There are also costs associated with lost sales and insurance payouts.
I might just say in parenthesis that eating a pie in the Parliament House canteen has got with it certain drawbacks. At least two members consuming a pie today in our canteen found that the pie had been frizzled up, dried out and was actually to the colour of between dark brown and black. But I do appreciate that having to eat in the canteen is not only a risky business but also an egalitarian business because parliamentarians, without their own dining room, can meet with members of staff and others, even the security guards. But it seemed to me that we might need to have a security guard over the pie warmer in the canteen. I share community concerns about this bill and also for the health and benefits even of our parliamentarians.
Consumers expect food to be safe and the food service industry is under pressure to demonstrate that it is producing safe food to maintain consumer confidence. I agree that the public has a right to know. Under this bill, information will not be published immediately because it requires payment of a penalty notice, the issue of a penalty notice enforcement order or at least 70 days to have elapsed. Furthermore, because information would not be published if businesses choose to contest the notice in court, there could be long and additional delays because of court delay.
I am concerned that the published information will not be timely. Choice magazine has called for all hygiene inspection information to be made public, including the findings of recent and previous inspections. Choice recommends a system of food businesses displaying certificates of inspection in restaurants. Customers should be given information about hygiene so that they can make informed choices on where to eat. For the most part Australians are kept in the dark about dirty restaurants and other food outlets. Restaurant inspections are carried out by local council staff, generally environmental health officers, and a report completed for each visit detailing the food outlet’s hygiene standards, both good and bad.
The frequency of inspections varies in the State’s 152 local councils. It can also be up to the discretion of the inspecting officer, but will generally depend upon the risk that the food business poses and its history of compliance with food standards. As I was growing up my parents owned a shop and bakery where the public were able to purchase food. My parents lived in fear that the council food inspector might visit, so every single day the benches were scrubbed, the refrigerators and food handling areas were cleaned and every utensil was scaped and cleaned. The fear of this was actually a means of keeping the property spotlessly clean.
The Hon. Henry Tsang: How were the pies?
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: The pies created by my parents were always fresh and always hot. In fact, my father’s pies were renowned in the area. If we have to compete with other cosmopolitan cities of the world, as a previous speaker said, the Government must follow measures that reflect world’s best practice in food safety evident in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Toronto, and in Britain. In New York, the inspection results of more than 20,000 of the city’s restaurants are available on a website and can be searched by name, neighbourhood, or hygiene points score. Other American States have adopted similar schemes. A study of Los Angeles restaurants conducted by Dr Phillip Leslie from Stanford University found that hospital admissions from food poisoning plunged 13.3 per cent a decade ago when restaurants were forced to display their inspection results. Restaurants in Los Angeles lifted their performance as a result.
A similar scheme is operating in Britain, where councils have signed up to a massive Scores on Doors program, posting hygiene compliance results to restaurant doors or windows, supported by information on a website. In Auckland, registered food premises are given a food hygiene grade from A to E, which they have to display. I am quite sure that if on going to an establishment I saw an E grade displayed on the door, I would think twice about eating at that establishment.
The Hon. Michael Veitch: “E” for excellent.
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: It does not stand for “excellent”; it stands for “failure”. There is also a website where people can search by business name or address and look up the grade. Finally, in Canada, Toronto’s DineSafe program allows customers to see the results of any restaurant’s most recent inspection on a coloured sign in the window—green for pass, yellow for conditional pass, and red for those that fail and are closed down. Its website provides details of each establishment’s most recent inspection finding, as well as its inspection history.
Most councils do little to prosecute serious food law breaches or to disclose the results with regard to those who have breached the food standards. Last year, for example, the City of Sydney Council would not identify more than 70 restaurants fined when the Sydney Morning Herald sought the information under freedom of information laws. North Sydney Council did the same. Leichhardt Municipal Council issued no fines at all in 2005 and 2006. As other speakers have said, councils such as Blacktown City Council and Woollahra Council are taking the initiative to name and shame dodgy restaurants in their neighbourhoods. Last year Blacktown City Council released to a local newspaper a list of food businesses fined for breaches of the food laws but did not provide penalty notices.
Documents released by Woollahra Council reveal that officers imposed fines on 10 restaurants and other food businesses in 2005 and 2006. Details of these offences only came to light because Woollahra Council agreed to follow the international trend and release them to the Sydney Morning Herald under freedom of information laws. In doing so, it became the second council in New South Wales to release such information. I congratulate the Government on being the first government in the country to publish information about such convictions.
The matter means a great deal to me. During my 27-year tenure as Superintendent of Wesley Mission health standards were extremely important, not only in the gold standard award Wesley Restaurant, which was one of only 29 restaurants in Sydney that were given the gold standard level, but in all centres—aged care centres, childcare centres, conference centres, feeding areas, restaurants, and kitchens that supplied hundreds of thousands of meals every year. I was absolutely paranoid that we should at some time or other fail food standard tests, and therefore I instructed all staff to uphold the highest levels of our internal standards.
At Wesley Mission we only used professional cooks and staff in our kitchens, and everything was expected to meet our high-quality standards of preparation. As a result, the kitchens, dining rooms and restaurants in all our centres had to have passed the ISO 9000 quality assurance standard. This meant that every place preparing food had to be certified and accredited at the highest standard of professionalism, cleanliness and hygiene. Just because people are underprivileged, as we served as a mission, or poor, as we served as a charity, does not mean they should be served food that has not been treated in the most hygienic way possible.
I came under a lot of criticism from the charity sector a few years ago as we drew closer to Christmas. Charities were appealing for food that had been left-overs from restaurants and clubs to be given to the poor. I declared that this was a bad practice and that Wesley Mission would certainly not be part of such a practice. We used professional staff in Wesley’s hygienic kitchens, and they were expected to prepare Christmas meals, like those prepared on Boxing Day and other days. We were always grateful for volunteers who helped us. But the volunteers had to come during the week prior to Christmas Day in order to be trained in the hygienic handling of food, including the wearing of plastic gloves and hairnets, and all the other things that are involved. I believe that homeless and underprivileged people should be seated and served as people would in any major restaurant—and that they should be served with dignity.
At Christmas time, when most of the charities were appealing for gifts of food from restaurants and clubs and other establishments that were closing for the Christmas holidays, we were very surprised to find that one of the largest charities of all serving meals refused to take gifts of food, or cooked chicken, fresh fish and the like, for service to the poor and needy on Christmas Day. I believe that charities should budget in advance. They should have cooks and chefs, and everything should be prepared and served hygienically and properly, and with a sense of dignity to those who would take it.
As Australians expect to have world-class standards, or standards that are applied worldwide in advanced industrialised major cities, I challenge the Government to amend this legislation to achieve what the public expect: that is, the whole chain of food preparation, including the handling, storing and servicing of food, should be monitored, and the appropriate information should be provided to consumers as soon as possible. Enforcements must be in place so that the food industry is held accountable. I do not believe we are doing enough by allowing some months to go by before the results are published.
The Hon. Ian Macdonald: We have whole of chain.
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: You have whole of chain but not immediate responsibility, Minister.
The Hon. Ian Macdonald: I will come to that.
Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes: Thank you, Minister. Consumers deserve the right to know about the businesses that have failed to do the right thing—at the time that they want to consume the food. It is not good enough that because a case will be coming before the courts, no warning is given to consumers that they might be consuming food from a place that has already been charged. The Government must ensure that public health and safety in New South Wales are guaranteed and that anyone who breaches the standards is named and shamed. Having said that, however, I welcome the Food Amendment (Public Information on Offences) Bill 2008 and commend it to the House. I hope the Minister will take on board some of the concerns I have raised.
