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Fertiliser companies now police themselves

By Gerard Ryle
May 7 2002

Australian consumers have no way of knowing what is in the fertiliser they are spreading over their farms and gardens.

In late 1998 NSW followed Victoria, becoming one of the last states to abolish the registration of products.

Under laws that had applied since the 1930s companies wanting to sell a product used to have to pay a fee to have it registered. They also had to provide detailed information about its content.

But after the big fertiliser companies complained about the cost, the industry became almost completely self-regulated.

Companies selling fertilisers are meant to abide by state labelling codes. However, a loophole allows manufacturers to produce a fertiliser in one state, under one set of laws, and then to sell it in another.

Angela Thomas, the technical manager for Yates, said not all companies put heavy-metal warnings on their packs even if, technically, they should.

She said there was little testing of products by state agricultural departments and no recent prosecutions for incorrect labelling.

"There was actually quite a strict way of registering fertilisers in each individual state but now a lot of the requirements for registrations have been rolled back," she said. "You just need to basically conform to the regulations. You don't have to submit an application to actually register a fertiliser."

Denis Butler, from the Chemical Residue Laboratory of NSW Agriculture, confirmed there was no testing regime in NSW.

He said that when the Fertiliser Act was revised in 1998 - it became law the following year - it was determined that "industry regulation would take over from government regulation in respect to fertiliser content and marketing".

In other words the companies would police themselves.

The Herald found a similar story when it contacted the chemical residue branches of other states. Only Victoria undertakes some form of testing, and then only once every two years.

"We all kind of looked over each other's shoulders and saw the way the wind was drifting," said Peter Rutherford, chemical co-ordinator for the West Australian Department of Agriculture.

"We saw ... our registration system was nothing more than a duplication of consumer protection provided by the Fair Trading Ministry, so we just said, 'Why impose that?' So we took it off."

Geoff Cowles, a senior registration officer with the department of primary industries in Queensland, said the rules were now similar to the Commonwealth tax system.

"The onus rests with the seller to get it right, so any product that is on the market in Queensland is assumed by this department to be complying with all respects of the legislation," he said.

"Our view is that provided the product hasn't exceeded the maximum permitted concentration [of heavy metals], the product should be reasonably safe to be on the market."

Asked how the department knew the levels were not exceeded, he said: "Well you don't because ... a product that is on the market is assumed by our department to be complying in every respect with the legislation.

"The only way you could find out would be if you were to investigate every batch of fertiliser that is on the market. We don't have the resources to do that.

"... One of the difficulties we have in the no-registration process is that we are really not in a good position to know ... what is on the market."


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