On 13 May 2015, Senator Bernardi successfully moved his motion in the Australian Senate for an inquiry into third-party food certification – particularly, halal certification – to help expose the rorts and scams.
The inquiry identified that bribery, corruption, dodgy certificates and crooked dealings are endemic in the halal certification industry.
Since then, the Government has done little to bring this flagrant and burgeoning practice to heel.
The fees charged for certification on Australian businesses are significantly more than the cost of delivering the service. Senator Bernardi told the Australian Senate in May that an Adelaide mosque had reaped $200,000 in a year certifying Australian produce for a cost of just $300. It is also unclear what causes these surplus funds are put towards.
The Coalition’s inaction on Halal Certification has been so poor that Australian Conservatives created a ‘Halal Inaction Clock’, counting the years, months, days and hours since the tabling of the inquiry report – and counting the Coalition’s inaction ever since.
To mark the third anniversary of Coalition inaction, Senator Bernardi moved a private member’s bill – the Halal Certification Transitional Authority Bill 2018 – implementing the key recommendation to clean out the rorts and scams in halal.
Recognise this anniversary of inquiry initiation, but then government inaction, by:
- checking out the Halal Inaction Clock and adding your name in protest at this travesty
- watching Senator Bernardi’s question in Senate Question Time in May 2018 (below) and listening carefully to the answers given by the government
- boycotting products (or businesses) that carry halal certification so not to reward the scams in halal certification
- reading the Senate committee Report, and/or
- sharing this Action Plan post on social media with family, friends and those maybe unaware of the halal scam.
