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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2129 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

These sheds are crammed with battery cages. The hens live generally four to a cage, and each cage measures some 450 millimetres square. Each hen thus has a space significantly less than an A4 page in which to live out her life, with no space to spread her wings or to do the things that hens naturally do, like scratching the ground, perching and nesting.

Battery hens live a life of misery; there is no doubt about that. Male chicks do not even get to live, because they are useless for egg production, and are killed off soon after birth. Hens' beaks are partly removed to stop the pecking and cannibalism that arises from the hens being kept in such confined spaces. The hens are constantly required to stand on sloping wire mesh floors so that the eggs can roll out for collection. Because the cages are stacked on top of each other, the hen faeces from the upper cages falls on the birds below and eventually filters down to the ground. The hens suffer many health problems as a direct result of caging, and, exhausted after about a year or 18 months of egg production, are then slaughtered for stock cubes or pet food. The Greens believe it is time that this cruel system was stopped. We are, however, aware of the economic realities faced by egg producers and have tried to be as conciliatory as possible in establishing more humane alternatives to the battery cage system. The three-year phase-out will allow time for Parkwood Eggs and other farms which supply the ACT market to modify their production systems, with minimal cost.

The Bill will allow hens to be kept in a free range, barn or aviary system. While the free range system is the ideal, animal welfare groups generally accept that more intensive keeping of hens is still necessary to supply the large market for eggs and to minimise production costs. Eggs can be produced in an intensive system but without the cages, and that is the proposal that we are putting forward. The barn system allows hens to be kept in large sheds. There would be no cages, and the hens would be allowed to freely move around the shed and scratch around in deep litter on the floor. The aviary system extends this concept by providing multilevel benches, perches and nesting boxes within the shed, which allows hens to freely move from level to level. These systems are fairly intensive but still allow the hens to have a reasonable opportunity for natural behaviour and forming social groups. It is getting the hens out of prison but still in a confined shed.

We have already heard in the media that Parkwood Eggs claims that it will be forced to close because of this legislation, but this stance has to be seriously questioned. If Parkwood Eggs cannot change its business practices over a three-year period, then you have to wonder about its management capacity and its ability to be innovative. There would be no point in it moving over the border as it would still not be able to sell in the ACT eggs from battery hens. Parkwood Eggs currently enjoys a virtual monopoly in the ACT egg market. Perhaps it would be good to introduce some more competition into the ACT from other egg producers who are prepared to be innovative. The assertion has also been made that this legislation will cost jobs. In fact, the position is quite the opposite. More jobs will be created. More jobs will be created because the alternative egg production systems are more labour intensive; that is the whole point of the legislation. Egg prices may rise by around 2c per egg to cover the additional costs, but it must be remembered that the price of eggs from battery hens is artificially low because of the high level of neglect and suffering that the birds endure under the battery cage system. That is because there is not enough monitoring; there are not enough people looking after the hens. Essentially, that is where the cost saving is at the moment.

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