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How multinational dairy companies convinced ministers to back away from new rules for baby formula (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 3 days ago by Dave@lemmy.nz to c/politics@lemmy.nz

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New baby formula standards were designed to prioritise infant nutrition and take the pressure off parents. But for formula companies, profits were at stake. And that's when the lobbying kicked in.

Concerns about misleading marketing claims on the tins was one of the reasons public health experts from New Zealand and Australia spent the past decade writing a set of regulations that would prioritise infant nutrition above all other interests.

Over 11 years, officials commissioned 36 public reports, five consumer studies and 40 stakeholder workshops, and wrote draft after draft. The regulations were all but signed and due to be implemented this year.

But in August, the government opted out of the trans-Tasman proposal last-minute, citing costs to exporters. While Australia will implement the new standards in 2030, New Zealand now intends to develop its own.

This RNZ investigation uses background interviews with industry insiders, officials and experts as well as documents obtained under the Official Information Act to show how the formula industry lobbied the government to put private profit before public health, and won.

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[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are not many countries in the world where that would be true. And in many of the countries where that is true the arrests are often not on the judicial merits but more arbitrary wings of power blocks flexing their muscles.

One of the differences here is that in NZ we tend to find out about this sort of "light" corruption.

On another note, What will likely happen - along with most of the things our dairy lobby pushes, is that as trading partners like the US become unreliable and market realities change we will need to meet the standards we've just rejected anyway.

Its the same story as the eggs thing a couple years ago. The weakened voluntary standards didn't meet the demand of the market and those that hadn't opted to invest in what the market wanted were left behind. Same thing will happen to our agriculture if they want to continue to sell into Europe and China will just flex whatever they want so like it or not the increased standards will be coming down the line anyway.

[–] BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 day ago

First of all I don't see this as "light" corruption. Light corruption is slipping a cop a few dollars to let you go on a speeding ticket. This is corruption that's measured in tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. the fact that it's not just one cop but the entire apparatus of the government makes it HUGE corruption.

Secondly as I have stated elsewhere this kind of corruption is so prevalent that most people don't even perceive it as corruption. They have internalised it and accepted as business as usual. That's why you see it being reported, because there are never consequences for corruption out in the open.