Recent publications
Exposed: The Inaccurate and Inappropriate Campaign by Zoos Victoria
Zoos Victoria is constituted by the State of Victoria under the Zoological Parks and Gardens Act 1995 and is responsible to Environment Minister, Gavin Jennings. Last year, Zoos Victoria received $14.6 million of taxpayer funds. One of the...
Forcing Prices Up
Grocery prices will always be controversial, especially when government policy is artificially inflating their price. The ACT government commissioned John Martin to complete a review into the ACT government's supermarkets competition policy....
Submission to the Blewett Review
The Council of Australian Governments has commissioned a review into Australia's food labelling policy and laws chaired by Dr Neal Blewett AC. In its issues consultation paper, the committee raised a series of questions addressing possible...
Submission to the Senate inquiry into the food standards amendment bill
The Senate Community Affairs Committee is currently considering Senator Xenophon, Brown and Joyce's co-sponsored Food Standards Amendment (Truth in Labelling - Palm Oil) Bill 2009. The proposed Bill would require the separate labelling of palm oil...
Palming off livelihoods? The misguided campaign against palm oil
Internationally environmental non-government organisations and activists are campaigning against industry and consumer use of palm oil. Their opposition to is driven by claims that it is unsustainable promotes deforestation and reduces orang-utan...
Misguided Palm Oil Campaigns Won't Help Orang-Utans, But Will Harm Asia's Poor
"Misguided campaigns by the Melbourne Zoo, celebrities and activists lack understanding of why forest and orang-utans are being lost. It isn't palm oil it's poverty", said Tim Wilson, Director of the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit at...
The GST is a massive fat tax
Many public health activists claim that a tax on fatty food is necessary to tackle obesity. The critics of this fat tax idea point to a number of studies revealing the limitations of such a scheme. A 2005 US study of a 10 per cent fat tax on dairy...
Organic without redemption
It's official-you aren't being harmed by supermarket food. In July the UK Food Standards Agency released a commissioned report that found there are no additional health benefits from organic foods. The research found only a third of all studies...
Big fat beat up
Arnold Schwarzenegger is obese. He's been obese his entire adult life, including the seven times he won the Mr Olympia bodybuilding title. Despite obesity not impacting his own, clearly excellent, health, Governor Schwarzenegger has introduced...
Who should take the blame for the biofuels tragedy?
In Mexico early last year, 75,000 people took to the streets in protest of the increasing cost of basic grain, in what were branded the ‘tortilla riots.' In March 2008, there were food riots in Egypt. And in April, Haitians rioted over the...