ACTIVITIES IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 16

ACTIVITIES IN AUSTRALIA

At a recent conference of Ministers'of Agriculture of the various States of Australia, it was agreed tkat all States should take uniform action to.eliminate synthetic butter. Owing to the great disparity in price between Australian butter sold in Australia' and the same article sold overseas— to the disadvantage of the consumer in the Commonwealth—recourse has apparently been had to margarine as a substitute. The trade in this article has grown to such proportions that steps have been taken in some States to legally "discipline" the industry in the interests of producers of butter. At the conference above referred to, the chairman (Mr. H. Main, New: South Wales) introduced the. matter of action necessary for safeguarding the dairy industry against the sale of butter substitutes. The position in regard to the competition of table margarine,' or synthetic butter, he said, had become so serious that if it were not checked, it woidd be disastrous to the dairy industry. It was impossible for the public to detect tiie difference between the latest form of table margarine manufactured from vegetable oils and, the best butter. Any action was permissible that would safeguard the consumer from such deception. Mr. J. Allen, (Victoria.) said the Act in his State, whicli 'prohibited the use of butter-fat in margarine, had driven the manufacturers, out of Victoria into New South AVales; . Mr. Main pointed out that, with the new form of margarine which did not include any, milk product, Victoria was no longer protected. Mr. Bulcock (Queensland) said that Queensland had enacted the most drastic legislation against .butter substitutes, but this would no longer be effective. The synthetic butter now being made was a menace to the dairying industry, to the genuine margarine industry, which used animal fats, the product of the pastoral industry, and the counterfeit article was also a dangerous food for children. He moved: —"That it be a recommendation*to the various States that where table margarine be manufactured, it shall be coloured a distinct pink, so as to be identifiable as margarine." This, he said, would be in accordance with Commonwealth law, as regulations under the Customs Act provided that all imported margarine must be coloured pink. The conference adopted the motion unanimously.