Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill 2012

The majority voted against amendments introduced by Nationals MP John Cobb, which means that they were rejected.

In his explanation of the amendments, Mr Cobb said that the Coalition "is strongly of the view that the only way to achieve the stated aim of the bill to increase efficiency and speed up the review of high-risk chemistries is to remove the reregistration process."(Read Mr Cobb's full explanation of his amendments here. )

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced to implement one of the Government's 2010 election promises. This promise was made in response to recommendations of the Australian National Audit Office and the Productivity Commission.(Read more about the background to the bill in its bills digest. )

It amends the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code (the Agvet Code) which is a Schedule to the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 to:

• through a risk-based approach, improve: the consistency and transparency of the process for making, and assessing, applications for approval of an active constituent for a proposed, or existing, chemical product; and the registration of a chemical product and approval of a label for the containers of a chemical product

• insert a new requirement that existing approvals and registrations operate for a finite period and, when that period has elapsed, a new application must be lodged for re-approval or re-registration and

• update existing offences, create new offences and insert civil penalty provisions.(Read more about the background to the bill in its bills digest.

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