Members of Food Labelling Review Committee Selected by Ministerial Council

By Joe Lederman and James Elton
FoodLegal Lawyers and Consultants
© Lawmedia Pty Ltd, February 2010

On 23 October 2009 it was announced that the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council (the Ministerial Council) had established the committee to undertake a national review of Food Labelling Law and Policy. The committee is headed by Dr Neal Blewett AC, a former Australian Minister for Health as chairperson, and the other members of the Review Committee will be Dr Chris Reynolds, Dr Simone Pettigrew, Associate Professor Heather Yeatman and Mr Nick Goddard.

The terms of reference of the food law and policy review mention that the Review Committee will be independent and will examine, amongst other things, current policies, standards and laws relevant to food labelling requirements including those relating the health claims and Front-of-Pack labelling as well as being able to note other recommendations to improve food labelling law and policy.

On 26 October 2009, the Committee called for initial submissions identifying issues that interested stakeholders would like to be considered as part of the review. The initial round for submissions closed on 20 November 2009 and more than 5,500 submissions were received by the Committee.

The Committee held its first meeting on 25 November 2009, followed by another on 17 December 2009. The submissions received in the initial round are being used as a basis to inform a Discussion Paper regarding the issues due for release in early March 2010. The release of the discussion paper will be followed by a period for public consultation, including meetings in all Australian and New Zealand capital cities scheduled for the period from March 2010 through to May 2010. Registrations for the consultation meetings will open in mid February 2010.

The following link outlines the background of each person appointed to the Food Labelling Review Committee.


This is general information rather than legal advice and is current as of 30 Oct 2021. We therefore recommend you seek legal advice for your particular circumstances if you want to rely on advice or information to be a basis for any commercial decision-making by you or your business.