King Hazza,

Yet again you were incapable of providing any evidence that the costs of GM labeling are insignificant.

If you don't like a business council link try

www.foodstandards.gov.au

There are several articles, I will let you browse, but I warn you that they use big words.

The first estimate from KPMG was $A3bn for the first year cost of tracking and labelling GM food.

Later estimates on a far reduced scope were still greater than $300m p.a. based on a simpler occasional final testing scenario. With undetermined set up costs. This requirement is so weak and easy to avoid, that as I know there are no foods with GM labels.

The government does not have the stomach to implement the more stringent and expensive ($3bn) protocols.

You have also completely failed to answer my question of:

If it is cheaper and simply to label foods GM free, and it achieves the same end, why can this path not be followed?

The Australian Cancer foundation is funded by primarily public donations. They managed to achieve the inclusion of a red tick on the graphics of food products.

SM continues to make claims for which s/he has provided no evidence (billions of $?) all in support of current measures which keep the public ignorant of the products they buy.

Next SM will claim that s/he is balanced and rational.

After some thought, the penny finally drops. Please forgive, the point that SM is making is that money is more important than an informed public.

OK I may take a while, but I get there eventually.

:P

Severin,

What more do you want? I have shown the mechanism that determines the pricing, and I have provided links to sites that refer to the same pricing mechanism and the KPMG study that determined the cost.

Do you need certified copies of the study? The directors of KPMG to explain it to you? (PS KPMG is a major accounting and auditing company who also specialize in such scenarios). Maybe the food standards authority and KPMG are unbalanced too, and you are the only sane one?

But Severin, perhaps you could provide some information to the contrary, as you seem awfully cocky, but as I remember, you never back up your convictions with even an ounce of evidence.

I bet you are totally incapable of doing so, and also rely on the simplistic nay saying that requires no grey matter.

Please prove me wrong.

Oh Shadow I was hoping you'd walk into this one- especially since Bugsy's source was provided:

Funny thing about the link you gave, because when i followed it to the main page and typed in "GM Label", I got a link saying "Part 3- labelling of GM products"- one of the first sentences written was:

"This is a mandatory requirement under Standard 1.5.2 Food Produced using Gene Technology for GM foods to be labelled. These requirements came into effect in Australia and New Zealand in December 2001 and are intended to provide information to consumers to facilitate choice, assisting consumers to purchase or avoid GM foods depending on their own views and beliefs."

The best part is it's the same source Bugsy showed us the precise labelling requirements imposed, to which I said was satisfactory- which means "my" system has in fact been in practice for a long time.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong but it's now 2010- over 8 years since the labelling had already been introduced, and the cost of this system has been, and is being paid right now.

I think Severin, that we've given Shadow more than enough attention to have made his case (and I think this is perfectly satisfying evidence of minimal economic hardship- even when the recession came and went elsewhere more substantially than here).

Anyway, sorry Bugs for the OT, to further your own question, what do you and Severin make of the standards you provided?
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/Standard_1_5_2_GM_v116.pdf

As I mentioned earlier Hazza, I am fine with the labeling requirements as they stand. They came in to force in 2001, and the US-Aus Free Trade Agreement mentioned in pelicans original post came in to force in 2005.

However, I would not be in favour of any further labeling requirements that would effectively present a trade barrier or require costly reporting mechanisms and auditing procedures to be in place.

However, to relate this to the original post, I agree with pelicans point in that I think that an investor-state dispute resolution process is unnecessary to add to the FTA at this present time, unless someone can show clear benefits for our citizenry.

That is, the decision to be made as to whether further labeling is required or not should be made by our elected representives, regardless of whether I agree on the outcome, not by corporations or overseas investors looking to protect their capital.

As this is the current status quo, I would not be advocating any change in policy.