Charity sausage sizzles to be exempt from ACT food safety laws

The ACT Government is backing away from its controversial laws for charity barbecues.

Laws were introduced in September forcing organisations, like charities and sporting groups, that hold more than five barbecues a year to train a food safety officer to oversee the event.

This sparked concerns from school groups and charity organisations who said that the new laws would harm their fund-raising efforts.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says the new food safety regulations were never designed to target charity barbecues.

"The changes we brought into the Food Safety Act were really around the increasing prevalence of venues that sell food and sell high-risk food to the community," she said.

"For example supermarkets, petrol stations, large sporting organisations are all selling food that were not subject to the same regulations or standards that restaurants are."

Ms Gallagher says the laws will now be changed to exempt temporary food stalls selling low-risk items.

"Certainly the feedback we've had from the community is that they don't think the barbecues, sausage sizzles should be subject to food safety standards," she said.

"I have a couple of areas where I have some concern with that, but certainly the overwhelming view is barbecues, sausage sizzles should be exempted and we are currently working on a way to do that throu gh the law."

Ms Gallagher says it is easier to exempt community barbeques and sausage sizzles than introduce new laws which could become confusing.

"People if they buy sausages from a sausage sizzle, they do it at their own risk, they make their own judgements about that," she said.

"But we will concentrate our efforts on the other temporary food stalls. It's not everyone exempted, but a particular group."

Stalls selling high-risk foods such as chicken, mayonnaise, pastries, salads and sandwiches are still subject to the regulations, as are larger events like the annual Multicultural Festival.

Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson says the laws were not well thought-out.

"The nanny-state regulations introduced by the ACT Government were ill-conceived and the Opposition welcomes this back flip by Government," he said.

The changes will have to pass through the ACT Legislative Assembly before they can come into effect.

Source: ABC News, 21 November 2013