Provisions of act inoperative after six months in force

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32459, 20 November 1970, Page 14

Provisions of act inoperative after six months in force

Important provisions of the Consumer Informatior. Act are still inoperative almost six months after the act came into force, because necessary Gazette notices and regulations have not been promulgated.

A spokesman for the Department of Industries and Commerce confirmed yesterday that no Gazette notices or regulations had been promulgated under the Act. The department was still holding discussions on them, he said.

Some requirements of the act have a blanket application, and are in force by definition. They include the requirement that a package must carry the name and address of a packager or the person on whose behalf the goods were packaged. Blanket provisions also apply to certain aspects relating to misleading labelling, packaging, and advertising; to misleading representations on prices; and to the method of fixing labels to packages and the nature of the labels. But the clause which requires the quantity of goods to be shown on the label applies only to products specified in a Gazette notice.

The clause requiring other particulars on labels—such as the name of the product, the ingredients, and their percentage by weight of volume,

on use, mainten- . ance, storage and cleaning, . information on the uses and ■ performance of the product, : and the date on which it was t packaged—applies only to , products named in regulations. ! i Certain aspects of the deceptive or misleading pack- . aging or advertising provisions also require regulations. When applied to imported products, the name-and-ad-dress requirement needs a| Gazette notice to be effective. The departmental spokesman said that discussions were proceeding with manufacturers and packagers. He could give no indication of what provisions were involved in the discussions, nor

could he give any indication of when regulations or Gazette notices might be introduced. Even when the regulations and notices are eventually brought down, apart .from those applying to misleading ■packaging or advertising they cannot under the act take effect for six months , after (they are promulgated. As it is now unlikely that they will be brought down before December 1, it will mean that several important clauses of the act will not have any effect, for a full year after the act came into force (on June 1 last) and for almost two years after it was passed, on August 22, 1969.