Page 1996 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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supports it, I think that we will be proud to be able to say that we have undone a wrong and that we will lead the rest of the country.
The Greens appreciate the efforts of the Chief Minister over the last two years to raise the issue of the cage egg ban with other jurisdictions. As Mr Stanhope would know, some jurisdictions have expressed a willingness to move away from cage systems but, critically, no jurisdiction has actually acted. The Tasmanian parliament even voted down a bill to ban cage production, and when it did so it copied the arguments the ACT government used earlier. It said that no other jurisdiction was doing it, so therefore it should not either.
The clear lesson from this is that a single jurisdiction must in fact act first. Action from our government will give power to the Chief Minister’s words. I believe that, given that, it will encourage other waiting jurisdictions to actually move to action.
I would ask members to reflect on where we might be today if the Assembly had supported a ban on cage egg production two years ago, say. Tasmania then could not have argued that no other state was banning the egg production method. It would have more likely followed our lead. It would not be long before any criticism of an ACT ban would have shifted on to recalcitrant states.
The need for federal cooperation is also reflected in the bill. It requires a responsible ACT minister to take steps to promote a national ban on cage eggs and to report to the Assembly on his or her actions.
In the past, the Chief Minister has responded to attempts to ban cage egg production in the ACT by arguing that a ban would not in fact save a single chicken from suffering and that it would be a Pyrrhic victory. However, I do not agree with that argument. I think that banning battery cages in the ACT will save at least some chickens from suffering. It will also have a significant impact on attitudes towards battery egg farming in Australia and it will move us more quickly towards a national ban.
The argument from opponents is that if cage eggs are banned then the ACT’s one cage egg producer will leave the territory—taking with it millions of dollars and many employees—and set up its operation somewhere else over the border. If those are the significant arguments impeding the ACT in acting on the issue then we have to look at the arguments.
There is only one cage egg producer in the ACT. It is at Parkwood farm at west Macgregor. It is owned by Pace Farm, which is Australia’s biggest egg producer. Parkwood holds approximately a quarter of a million chickens. The chickens live in the kind of conditions I described a few minutes ago. The potential for ending suffering here is quite large.
According to Parkwood’s own reporting to the national pollutant inventory, it has 14 employees. That is not the enormous number of workers that some people seem to imagine. I do recognise, of course, that protecting employment is important, but the type of employment at Parkwood is not generally lifelong employment and I would also point out that Parkwood would be a much bigger and better employer if it changed its production methods from the outmoded cage system to a barn or
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