The Industrial Chemicals Act 2017 passed the Senate last month but received royal assent just on Tuesday. It does not directly prohibit animal testing on cosmetics. However, it bans the results of any data from chemicals used in animal testing, conducted on or after July 1 next year, from being used in cosmetics from that date. However, from 1 July next year the regulator won’t accept safety data gained from animal testing after that date. Many animal tests are decades old and have scientific weaknesses due to differences between species and breeds that make regulation based on animal tests highly questionable, Hannah Stuart, campaign manager for #BeCrueltyFree, said. By contrast, non-animal testing focuses on how chemicals and medicines affect humans, rather than animals. "There are other methods to prove that chemicals are safe, for example, in-vitro methods such as cells from human skin that have been made to grow in the lab, or computer-based methods, or tests on human skin donated to research, for example from surgeries," HRA president Monika Merkes said. The companies will have to rely on such non-animal test data.

The regulator set up in the new law will only permit safety data from testing on industrial chemicals that are for sole use in cosmetics if that testing is not performed on animals, Dr Merkes said. This will provide a disincentive for companies to conduct toxicity testing on animals, she said. No statistics are available for cosmetic tests on animals conducted in Australia, although it is widely accepted that the cosmetics industry in Australia does not test on animals, Ms Stuart said. The new law will not apply to medical testing, and the ban will not apply retrospectively for ingredients tested on animals in the past. Further essential measures have been incorporated in the ministerial rules accompanying the act to strengthen the ban.

One of these is an undertaking that the ban will also capture cosmetic ingredients used in other product sectors. Federal Regional Services Minister Bridget McKenzie, deputy leader of the Nationals, said in a letter to #BeCrueltyFree that there was an "international trend away from reliance on the use of animals to determine the hazards and risks associated with the use of industrial chemicals". #BeCrueltyFree has played a leading role in many of the nearly 40 bans enacted to date, including in the European Union, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, India and Taiwan. The nations that have implemented similar bans have "contributed greatly towards the growth of the global in-vitro toxicity testing market, which is expected to continue to grow over the next two years – from $US14.5 billion in 2016 to $US27.36 billion by 2021", Ms Stuart said. "Negotiations between HSI and the government to secure the essential commitments and passage of the act were made possible through overwhelming public and cross-party support of #BeCrueltyFree Australia's campaign for a robust national ban on cruel cosmetics," she said.

"In particular through the support of key Coalition MPs Jason Wood and Steve Irons, as well as the backing of Senate amendment and motion co-sponsors Labor, the Greens, Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff, Senator Derryn Hinch, and Senator Tim Storer," she said. Mr Wood, federal member for La Trobe, said: "When I was a child, my father worked at Monash University, and I was shocked to see a range of animals from cats to monkeys suffer at the hands of scientific experiments. "However, even worse than this is when cosmetics are tested on animals when the simple outcome is to see if a shampoo will hurt our eyes, or a perfume will irritate our skin. "I am proud to state that I was the first MP to sign the #BeCrueltyFree petition to ban cosmetic testing on animals, and at the last election I was able to convince colleagues to make an election commitment on the ban. "In the last two years I have worked closely with Humane Society International, RSPCA and the Animal Justice Party. All of these groups had a united agenda of working with the [federal] government to put legislation in place, which will come into effect in July 2020, and which will see a complete ban of cosmetic testing on animals in Australia and a ban on the importation of products tested on animals overseas.