CONSUMERS deserve the truth when it comes to food labels writes NICK XENOPHON

When you walk through the aisles of the supermarket, you tend to choose the food you want to buy based on what the label says.

We might want to know whether it's high in salt or if it contains preservatives, whether it's made in Australia or imported, the fat and sugar content, whether it's fresh or processed, the list goes on.

We trust the labels to guide our shopping decisions. After all, if it's written on the front of the packet, surely it must be true.

Well, it would seem that's not the case at all.

Australia's food labelling laws are a disgrace and as a result, as consumers we aren't able to know exactly what we're eating or where it's come from.

Most Australians like to buy Australian products. We see the term "Made in Australia" and we think we're supporting local producers and manufacturers.

But the term "Made in Australia" is inherently deceptive.

Under our labelling laws, it merely means that 50 per cent of a product has been "substantially transformed" in Australia.

That means, for example, that orange juice, made entirely of Brazilian concentrate with Australian water added to it and packaged here, can be called "Australian made".

I would have thought it should mean that the oranges were grown here in Australia - at least, that's what the label implies.

And I don't know about you, but I don't eat the waxy cardboard container of a carton of orange juice, so why it's included as part of the ingredients calculation is beyond me.

Manufacturers know Australians prefer to buy local products and they've found the loopholes in the labelling regulations that allow them to mislead consumers.

It was recently revealed that mushrooms were being imported to Australia from China and labelled "Packed in Melbourne".

Consumers were given the impression by this label that the mushrooms were locally grown, but photos have emerged to show they were in fact grown and harvested in atrocious and unhygienic conditions in regional China, near contaminated surface water and rubbish.

Labelling laws mean consumers, like mushrooms, are being left in the dark (and being fed information that's a lot like the stuff used to grow mushrooms).

And when these foreign foods are passed off as Aussie foods, our local farmers lose their jobs.

Aseptic juice processing allows manufacturers to keep juice for up to two years at a time, but it means citrus growers are being ripped off.

Manufacturers buy excess oranges when the prices are low and then boil the orange juice and store it in sterilised bags, allowing them to use this juice when the price of oranges goes up.

Meanwhile, they still label the juice as "fresh".

Kate Carnell, from the Australian Food and Grocery Council, tried to argue recently that we were "in a dither about nothing" and that when the label says "fresh" it actually means "squeezed".

I don't know about you, but when I see "fresh" on a product at the supermarket, I think it means "fresh" - as in not two years old.

An online petition was launched earlier this week and in the first few hours, more than 1000 Australians signed on to the campaign for truth in labelling.

A government review into food labelling is being conducted by the former Federal Health Minister, Neal Blewett, which will be completed towards the end of this year.

This is at least a step forward - and truth in labelling can't happen soon enough.

We do not need a review to know consumers are confused.

And here's a quick memo to PM Gillard and Opposition Leader Abbott: Consumers are voters too. And they expect to hear how you'll fix up this deception during the upcoming election campaign.

  • Nick Xenophon is an Independent Federal Senator