Reviewing post settlement food safety legislation in Australia, a couple of things become clear. We spent more time being worried about the quality of beer and spirits than thinking about what went into the great Australian meat pie (which was invented circa 1850, about 50 years before the first Pure Food Act).
In this presentation I will discuss the benefits of island life, the history of food (and alcohol!) safety in Australia, and how we came to the robust food safety and biosecurity systems we have today. We will look at how these systems deal with an increasingly global food market, and share a few commandments and war stories about what can happen when things go wrong.