Dar seafood ppp standard

Compliance and enforcement issues
Industry bodies and representatives expressed concern regarding the impact of any standard on the industry and on practices within seafood businesses. In particular, industry expressed a desire to avoid unnecessary imposts and the potential for excessive cost-recovery revenue-raising by regulators at the expense of industry.
Industry and government submissions expressed the view that compliance and implementation costs associated with HACCP-based food safety plans were significant and had been under-estimated by FSANZ in the past. Information was provided detailing the costs of complying with current (HACCP-based) export certification schemes.
Industry also emphasised the need to avoid duplication of auditing and compliance activities (and hence costs) where a business supplied both domestic and export markets. Several submissions stated that businesses complying with export requirements should be deemed to comply with the domestic standard. Submissions also raised questions about the role, extent and system of audits that may be required under the standard.
A period of two to three years was generally nominated by industry as a preferred time frame for implementation of the Standard and for stock-in-trade provisions to apply. The need for government support to provide education and training was also raised.
Comment from government bodies covered issues including which level of government, and/or which government department, would have responsibility for regulation, implementation and enforcement of the standard. Audits were also discussed, incentive-based compliance schemes were generally supported, as was harmonisation with existing audit systems, such as those required by AQIS. Government bodies expressed a desire to avoid any duplication of current legislation, and to achieve genuine consistency on a national basis under the standard.
Once adopted into State and Territory legislation, enforcement of the Standard will become the responsibility of those jurisdictions. Policies regarding cost-recovery revenue-raising by regulators are set at that level of government in Australia.
FSANZ understands that a nationally agreed date for commencement of the Primary Production and Processing Standard will help to ensure national consistency, and will focus industry and regulators on the task at hand.
It is envisaged that a number of tools and resources will be developed to assist both industry and regulators in the implementation of the standard. A prime tool will be an interpretive guide to the Standard. This document will be developed by FSANZ in consultation with stakeholders. In addition, existing codes of practice developed and adopted by jurisdictions and industry, will provide further practical information. Existing codes of practice may be readily adapted to this purpose.