Principles
The Greens NSW believe:
1. Consumer boycotts are a legitimate and democratic expression of community standards, and an effective method for encouraging companies to abandon practices that are inconsistent with consumer expectations of ethical behaviour.
2. The ability to reject goods or services that a consumer feels violates their ethical standards or beliefs, or may compromise their health or wellbeing, is a right that should be protected and supported by clear, accurate, transparent and informative labelling of all products.
3. Labelling should be accessible to people from diverse socio-economic and educational backgrounds.
4. Companies should be required to provide easily and conveniently accessible information about the whole life cycle of their products.
5. Governments must take steps to protect consumers from goods that are harmful to their health and safety.
6. Consumers must have the right to repair any product they have purchased.
7. Consumers and subcontractors must be protected from personal losses caused by business failure, fraud and unfair practices.
8. Loyalty schemes pose a risk to privacy, contribute to a reduction in competition, constitute hidden pricing, and should be restricted.
9. In areas where market concentration is high, price controls and the creation of publicly-owned enterprises should be utilised to protect consumers.
Aims
The Greens NSW are working towards:
Labelling and consumer information
10. Mandatory disclosure of the full price of the product upfront, inclusive of add-on fees for essential components.
11. Requiring wholesalers and retailers to implement product traceability systems to identify the source of components and ingredients and disclose this information publicly.
12. Mandatory labelling of products containing animal ingredients that clearly identifies the contents.
13. The implementation of a clear and enforceable system for labelling vegan, vegetarian and other special dietary products.
14. The implementation of consistent, enforceable and legislated standards for higher-welfare meat and egg products to ensure the label is used only by companies whose production systems meet consumer expectations.
15. Mandatory labelling of all products, including cosmetic, cleaning or medicinal products, that have been tested on animals or contain ingredients tested on animals.
16. Mandatory labelling of all products containing palm oil or its derivatives.
17. Mandatory labelling of all products and packaging which shows whether they can be recycled and repaired, as well as their life expectancy.
18. Independent scrutiny and regulation of the claimed benefits of products, including health benefits and environmental sustainability.
19. Reforming labelling of the types of plastic to specifically declare their realistic ability to be recycled and to more accurately reflect the environmental damage they cause.
Product and food safety
20. Bans on the promotion and marketing of any product found to be unacceptably harmful to health, wellbeing, the environment, society, or culture.
21. A ban on food products with harmful levels of trans fats.
22. Ensuring that product safety assessments are conducted by independent laboratories using the best available evidence and the precautionary principle is applied to products that may pose a risk to human health or the environment.
23. World best practice in alerting diners to venue food-hygiene standards, including compulsory 'scores on doors', as well as nutrition labelling on menus and menu boards at all fast-serve food outlets, including salt, fat, saturated fat, and energy density.
Right to Repair
24. All products being designed to be repairable.
25. The right to obtain spare parts, including from third parties.
26. Requiring manufacturers to provide any necessary information to allow third parties to service and repair their products.
27. Requiring manufacturers to continue to provide, or facilitate others to provide, software updates required to operate their product for a reasonable amount of time.
Market monopolies
28. Government intervention to eliminate market monopolies and increase competition in industries with high levels of market concentration.
29. Initiatives to enable and encourage people to shop locally and support small businesses to avoid contributing to market monopolisation.
30. Mechanisms to protect strip shops and small outlets from predatory behaviour by large retailers and shopping centres.
Last revised April 2024