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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 8 Hansard (25 October) . . Page.. 2018 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The previous national code prescribed a standard of a little under 450 square centimetres per bird, although it was expressed in a slightly different way from that. In the intervening period, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Resource Management recommended a 450-square-centimetre minimum for birds under 2.4 kilos, to take effect from 1 January 1996; that is, they put back by a year the beginning of that larger amount of space for each bird.

Mr Berry: Does this mean that you have just had some quick training on the issue? You did not know a minute ago.

MR HUMPHRIES: I know a lot more than you know about hens, Mr Berry - except how to imitate their sounds on the floor of the Assembly. Mr Speaker, on 2 December last year, the then Minister for the Environment deferred until 1 January 1996 the introduction of a 600-square-centimetre minimum for all poultry. This was again because that date was consistent with the recommendations of the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand on that subject. I make no apologies for wanting to move consistently with a national code.

No, Ms Tucker, I do not approve of birds being made to suffer, but I contest your assertion that the birds are suffering because of the application of this code or because of any standard of neglect on the part of the operators of Parkwood Eggs. Those birds, for example, are checked each day - I understand, twice a day - for such things as feed and water. Ms Horodny shakes her head. How does she know that that is not the case? Ms Horodny told ABC radio on Friday morning that she had not been to Parkwood Eggs.

Ms Horodny: And neither have you.

MR HUMPHRIES: That is true, but my officers have. They have been to Parkwood Eggs and they have inspected it and they have a better capacity to determine the level of standard of care for those hens than do I or you.

Ms Horodny: Why are they sitting around dead for five days, if someone checks them every day?

MR HUMPHRIES: That is your assertion.

Ms Horodny: This is the vet.

MR HUMPHRIES: Are you sure that they were sitting around dead for five days, Ms Horodny?

Ms Horodny: This is the vet's report. If you have a problem with that vet, then you need to do something about that.

MR HUMPHRIES: Did you see them there at Parkwood Eggs? Did Ms Horodny see them there at Parkwood Eggs, dead for five days? Mr Speaker, after the first allegations were made on 15 September, officers of the Australian Federal Police and the Animal Welfare Unit sat down with officers of Parkwood Eggs and went through the videotapes and photographs taken by Animal Liberation out there, supposedly,

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