Page 4086 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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and that is at the heart of the government’s decision to support those particular proposals, though, as I say, not entirely in the form that Ms Le Couteur proposes. We acknowledge her initiative in addressing this issue that will be significant in informing consumer decision making around their purchase of eggs. I look forward to debate in the detail stage, and I support the bill in principle.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.14): The Liberal opposition will be opposing this bill in its entirety for most of the reasons that the Chief Minister has said he will be supporting it in principle. No bird will be saved from a cage egg system if this bill passes. What it will mean is that the 50 to 60 people who are employed at Pace Farm will lose their jobs; Pace Farm will close down their egg producing operation here and relocate their egg processing operation to another one of their facilities. They will absent the field.
A month or so ago the Chief Minister and I discussed the fact that Pace is, in fact, the single biggest primary producer in the ACT. We do have a very small primary production industry and I do not think we should be in the business of closing down such a large proportion of it. I have advocated for this on behalf of my constituents. I am not prepared to vote against the blue-collar jobs of people who are generally unskilled and earning low amounts of money. It is hard work, difficult work and dirty work. Often we find it is entry-level employment for people with non-English-speaking backgrounds who come to Australia from overseas as refugees and migrants. Many of the people employed out there would be in a difficult position.
After I read out the letter from the Pace employees in the adjournment debate a few weeks ago, I actually had emails and letters from people saying that these people could go and get another job. Well, there is a recession going on and unskilled blue-collar jobs are the ones that go first. It is not going to be easy, especially for someone from a non-English-speaking background, to go out and get another job in the ACT. That is a problem that we have in the ACT. The ACT has a narrow economic base, and I am not about narrowing the economic base.
The Liberal opposition is not opposing this bill because we do not care about animal welfare. We have taken a very considered decision on this. We have weighed the pros and cons and come up with a decision to oppose this bill on animal welfare grounds as well as on economic grounds. I think it is about time we stopped demonising a sector of this industry and actually got on with the business of improving for everybody animal welfare across the whole egg producing industry.
If you actually care to look at all the research and talk to people in the industry, they are as alive to the issues of animal welfare as are Ms Le Couteur and all those people who sent me emails from the ACT and across Australia and across the world advocating this ban. We should be continuing the good work that has been done in expanding cage sizes and addressing many of the issues of animal welfare. We have to remember that birds went into cages because the egg farmers and chicken farmers were advised to do so, on animal welfare grounds, in the 50s and 60s. One generation of farmers were told to do this on animal welfare grounds and, as a result of that, birds are less likely to die of diseases and less likely to have infestations of parasites.
Ms Bresnan: Back in the 50s—
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