REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS BEFORE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE NO. 1 – PREMIER AND FINANCE INQUIRY INTO FRESH FOOD PRICING CORRECTED At Jubilee Room, Parliament House, Sydney, on Friday 22 June 2018 The Committee met at 9.30 a.m. PRESENT Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile (Chair) The Hon. Rick Colless The Hon. Scott Farlow Mr Justin Field Ms Courtney Houssos The Hon. Taylor Martin The Hon. Mick Veitch CORRECTED CORRECTED CORRECTED Friday, 22 June 2018 Legislative Council Page 1 The CHAIR: Welcome everyone to the first hearing of the inquiry into fresh food pricing in New South Wales by Portfolio Committee No. 1. Before I commence I acknowledge the Gadigal people, who are the traditional custodians of this land. I also pay respect to the elders, past and present, of the Eora nation and extend that respect to any other Aboriginal people who may be present. Today the Committee will hear evidence from the following stakeholders: the Public Health Association of Australia, the New South Wales Farmers Association, the Cancer Council NSW, the New South Wales Council of Social Service, the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance, Foodbank New South Wales and ACT Limited, the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Right to Food Coalition, and the Transport Workers Union of New South Wales. Before we commence I will make some brief comments about the procedures for today's hearing. Today's hearing is open to the public and is being broadcast live via the Parliament's website. The transcript of today's hearing will be placed on the Committee's website when it becomes available. In accordance with the broadcasting guidelines, while members of the media may film or record Committee members or witnesses, people in the public gallery should not be the primary focus of any filming or photography. I also remind media representatives that they must take responsibility for what they publish about the Committee's proceedings. It is important to remember that parliamentary privilege does not apply to what a witness may say outside of their evidence at the hearing. I urge witnesses to be careful that any comments they may make to the media or to others after they have completed their evidence, as such comments would not be protected by parliamentary privilege if another person decided to take an action for defamation. The guidelines for the broadcast of proceedings are available from the secretariat. There may be some questions that witnesses can answer only if they had more time or certain documents to hand. In those circumstances witnesses are advised they can take the question on notice and provide an answer within 21 days. Witnesses are advised that any messages should be delivered to Committee members through the Committee staff. To aid the audibility of this hearing, I remind both Committee members and witnesses to speak into the microphones. In addition, several seats have been reserved near the loudspeakers for persons in the public gallery who have hearing difficulties. Finally, I ask everyone to please turn off their mobile phones or turn them to silent for the duration of the hearing. PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE NO. 1 – PREMIER AND FINANCE CORRECTED Friday, 22 June 2018 Legislative Council Page 2 JON WARDLE, Co-Convenor, Complementary Medicine, Evidence, Research and Policy, Public Health Association Australia, sworn and examined The CHAIR: Thank you for your attendance. Would you like to make a short opening statement? Dr WARDLE: Yes. I will give just a very brief overview of our submission. The Public Health Association [PHAA] is very interested in this topic because increasing fresh foods is one of the most effective ways to improve health. It has enormous societal and individual benefits. About 10 per cent of the Australian disease burden is associated directly with poor nutrition. Where studies have been done, 14 per cent of the Queensland hospital budget, for example, has been directly attributed to inadequate fresh food consumption. Our policy for affordability and accessibility is not addressed. Fresh food prices are increasing higher than are other foods and other expenses. These profits are certainly not going to the farmers or the transport workers. Food security is an enormous problem, one that is often underestimated. The average Australian family has to spend more than a third of their budget on food to maintain Australian healthy eating guidelines. It is often the only discretionary part of the budget that can be cut in times of financial stress. Food deserts require a competitive sector. The Australian retail sector in fresh foods is one of the least competitive marketplaces globally. Supermarket focus, in addressing fresh food access and affordability, can actually exacerbate the problem of access and affordability rather than fix it. That tends to be because most direct and indirect subsidies by government initiatives focusing on that sector rather than the independent and small business sector, which is actually shown to be the most affordable, accessible and most effective way of actually improving access to healthy foods. The major factors for some of these increasing prices are, obviously, the lack of competition. We think this is one of the main factors but also, clearly, climate change. Where transport does have an effect, it happens to be more about lower reliance on locally produced foods rather than the actual transport costs themselves. The CHAIR: Thank you for your detailed and well-prepared submission. The Committee appreciates that. The Hon. COURTNEY HOUSSOS: I echo the comments of the Chair. Thank you for your submission and your very concise response, which outline many of the key issues we are trying to address in this inquiry. I want to ask you to touch on some of the issues from your submission and also to refer to some other submissions and get your thoughts on those. One of your recommendations is a national survey using standardised comparable methods to look into food prices being conducted. Are you aware of any of those that are conducted in New South Wales, or perhaps elsewhere? Dr WARDLE: I think the issue is that lots of them are conducted. They do not tend to be comparable to each other because they use different methodologies. There are also additional and probably newer challenges that are problematic. For example, a lot of the surveys do not take into account the transient nature of a lot of promotions. If you go into any Woolworths, Coles or Independent Grocers of Australia [IGA], or other supermarkets, or even the smaller independent grocery stores, you will usually see that there is a two for one special on chips or chocolates, and the food surveys do not really pick up that. It is usually that it is not the same brand or it is not the same product that is on promotion, but there is always a promotion. We think that fresh foods are considered affordable by those surveys. We think that the current methodologies do not really capture the differential between the price of unhealthy foods versus healthy foods. The Hon. COURTNEY HOUSSOS: That is an excellent point, thank you. I just want to expand on your submission. One of our terms of reference is around mapping of food deserts. That is something that you referred to in your submission. Something that has been referred to in other submissions is that sometimes, in doing this mapping, supermarkets are considered to be giving people access to fresh food, but that might not always be the most effective way of providing that. Do you want to talk a little bit about how we could actually map food deserts? Dr WARDLE: Sure. A lot of government initiatives—and there have been some good ones and bad ones in mapping the retail sector in a sense—tend to look at minimum square footage of particular outlets. There has been a lot of work, particularly in Brisbane more than probably elsewhere in terms of independent groceries, which are butchers and bakers, and their impact on food provision, particularly in low socio-economic areas. They tend to have a higher ability to actually reach out and actually supply the community with healthy foods. The problem with a lot of the supermarket focus is that about two-thirds of the products in supermarkets are what we would consider unhealthy, by national dietary guidelines, with just one-third being healthy. They are usually more PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE NO. 1 – PREMIER AND FINANCE CORRECTED Friday, 22 June 2018 Legislative Council Page 3 expensive than the independent and smaller business sector. Usually, some of those initiatives also have a direct link into other dietary initiatives. Grocery Choice was tried out quite some time ago now—about 10 years ago—and drove people to the supermarket sector over the independent sector, because the independent sector was not even there. One of the primary proxies of food desert mapping has traditionally been the supermarket sector. We would recommend an approach that is used in other countries, particularly European countries. New Zealand is trying with what they call dairies or corner stores as well to improve fresh food access through smaller retailers. We think this has community benefit, social benefit as well as clear public health benefit from direct access to foods. The Hon. COURTNEY HOUSSOS: Absolutely. This is a New South Wales inquiry and one of the key ways that we could potentially influence the access to fresh food is for kids in schools. Some other submissions have talked about breakfast programs in schools. We even heard from the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations submission about lunch programs in other countries that provide free nutritious foods or even lunch box top-ups for students.