Rational decision on defining free range

John Durie
SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
THE AUSTRALIAN
JUSTICE Geoffrey Flick today provided the perfect follow to the Harper review with a rational judgment defining exactly what is a “free range egg”.
The issue is important as a quick trip to local store will show, because everyone claims to be selling free range eggs these days and consumers don’t know what they are getting.
Justice Flick provided what will now be the benchmark definition: they are product of a bird which is capable of wandering out of the pen each day and actually mostly does do so.
That’s a simple benchmark laid down by the court without the need for yet more regulation.
Business often argues there is no need to change the competition laws, just take more cases to let the courts lay down the principle.
Big business says that when it is not involved in the court case, because as the self-serving nonsense being uttered by Wesfarmers boss Richard Goyder shows, big business likes competition so long as it dominates.
The Harper comments on section 46 were lauded by 90 per cent of big business lawyers but Goyder and his business council comrades are happy to talk about the need for competition, so long as that means open doors for them and the doors are only closed when they are in total control.
The Harper review suggested change and offered a defence of rational business decisions in the long-run interests of consumers.
Granted those words penned by Harper panel member Michael O’Brien are elegantly put, and business may fear just what comes from the parliamentary draftsman and the Senate Looney Tunes hands.
But the hysterical response from Goyder and his cronies simply makes them look like self-serving hypocrites.
Back to rationality and the Flick judgment, which was in the $300,000 fine awarded today against NSW producer, Pirovic Enterprises.