If it actually became law, I guess it would be less doomed to failure. 
Based on what I wrote, if Colesworth require this then there is no extra overhead for a small supplier to satisfy every other wholesaler - since the supplier has to publish this information in a standard format.
That is exactly what I intended.
One thing that I didn’t say but should have is that … the supplier would have to digitally sign what it publishes … so that any wholesaler can download it and publish it on its own web site without the possibility of claims and counterclaims about: alteration by the wholesaler, repudiation by the supplier, …
Well, OK, if you are really worried that smaller suppliers won’t be able to meet the requirements then it would be possible for the government to exempt any supplier whose total annual sales in Australia are below a threshold. There is ample precedent for this kind of exemption, with the caveat that the exemption probably doesn’t last forever.
Perhaps the 80-20 rule applies. Yes, you won’t solve 100% of the problem (if you give an exemption) but you can solve 80% of the problem with 20% of the effort - and the rest of the problem may end up in diminishing returns.
Any data on that? i.e. what percentage of Colesworth’s range is from suppliers without any online presence? Or perhaps an easier question … for the products in your pantry, what percentage don’t contain a URL or email address on the packaging that represents some kind of online presence for the supplier? (A QR code that leads to the supplier’s web site should be deemed to be equivalent to a URL.)
I can tell you that Colesworth already impose certain IT requirements on suppliers - because Colesworth want to maximise their own efficiency. I can imagine that eventually small suppliers without any online presence will disappear from Colesworth (and thereby disappear from Australian households for the majority of households).
Technically speaking a small supplier does not need to have any public online presence. All they need to do is publish the required product information in the required format using a URL that they give to Colesworth. (In principle even just emailing the required format file would do the job.) But the point is that if they can’t be bothered having an actual web site and/or responding to thousands of spam contacts per day, there is no need to have a public presence for the purposes of meeting the requirement being discussed.
