Page 4088 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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We could not produce enough free-range eggs in the ACT if we turned over all our agriculture because chickens denude the land. Any of us who has ever owned chickens know what they do when they are allowed to get out and peck. They denude the land. It would have severe implications for run-off into our water catchments and the water supply that goes downstream. These are significant issues which are not addressed in the labelling because the Greens have chosen only to demonise cage egg production.
There are problems with barn egg production. In barns, chickens predate on one another. They get more diseases. There is more E coli in the eggs as a result of the way that they are collected and dealt with. There are problems with free-range egg production. Chickens are more likely to get diseases. They are much more likely to be predated on by cats, foxes, raptors and the like. Every one of these production systems has a problem, but the Greens are only interested in one.
If the Greens had come in here at some stage and said, “We want to have a serious discussion about animal welfare issues in relation to chickens,” I would have been happy to have that conversation. We could have had a rational discussion about everything, not just one sector of the market. We could have discussed what happens in barns and what happens in free-range production. But what we have seen here with this bill is the Greens demonising one process. We have had two months of talking about what is wrong with cage egg production. We have had two months of people demonising people who make choices—the choice to work in these places and the choice, for whatever reason, to buy the eggs that are produced in these places.
The government of the ACT should be standing up for doing these things correctly. Today, for a variety of reasons—I am not entirely sure what these reasons are—the Chief Minister is throwing a bit of a bone to the Greens. He said that everything in this bill, as tabled, after consultation for a couple of months, apart from, I think, the commencement date, is abhorrent to the ACT government, but that they are going to agree with it in principle and then gut it. They are going to gut it, and the bits that they do not gut they are going to transform out of all recognition.
I actually think that perhaps the proposal put forward by the Chief Minister in relation to labelling is a better system. It is a fairer system, it is less discriminatory and it actually is more accurate. But I do not see why the Chief Minister should be agreeing with something that he clearly disagrees with. He says he does not agree with the ban, he does not agree with the legislative requirement for him to advocate and he thinks the signage is bad, but he is still going to vote for this bill in principle.
Ms Le Couteur has tested the water. She has been told by the Labor Party and the opposition that we are not in favour of a ban, that we are not in favour of forcing by legislative means the Chief Minister to advocate in a particular way and that we have grave reservations about her proposals in relation to labelling in supermarkets. Ms Le Couteur should withdraw her bill. If she wants to come back with a labelling bill, I would be happy to contemplate it.
At this stage, the clear message to the people of the ACT is that the Labor Party and the Liberal Party support the people who are employed at Parkwood. We support the
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