Page 4096 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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Mr Stanhope’s speech when he said he supported the eventual abandonment of cage eggs and was going to advocate their ban. But the joy was a little bit short lived. I was hoping that “eventual” might be next year, although our bill did say 2011. I was thinking of “eventual” as some time reasonably soon—not the glacial time span that the Labor Party seems to be interested in. I would also like to say to the Liberal Party that, if they think the Labor Party is taking its current view to appease the Greens, I can assure you that the Greens are not appeased. We put forward this bill with the hope and expectation that it would be supported. The Labor Party in the past has been—
Mr Stanhope: Rubbish, Caroline. You are not that naive, Caroline.
MS LE COUTEUR: As you said yourself, Mr Stanhope, only 20 minutes ago, you support the eventual abandonment of cage egg systems. Now is the time to put your ideals into practice.
Moving on to some of the other issues which the Liberal and Labor parties have talked about as to reasons to not support the Greens bill, it has been suggested that in fact the cage production systems are actually good for chickens. I do not claim to be an expert on animal welfare. But I did see, and I believe all members were sent, a link to a YouTube video of cage egg production, and it is horrifying. I know all the animal welfare advocates have been advocating for many years that it is inhumane and horrifying.
One of our jobs as legislators is to say that there are some things which are just so bad that we are not going to tolerate them any longer—and cage egg production is one of them. This is one of strongest reasons that we need to move on this. I quite strongly agree with the view that the consumers have a very important role in this. But consumers are also guided by what the legislation says. And consumers, as far as cage eggs are concerned, will figure that it must be reasonably okay or it would be illegal. Consumers know we have laws about animal cruelty. If you kept your dog or your cat in the way that cage hens are kept, it would be illegal. So consumers do not expect that hens will be kept in a worse way than are dogs and cats. But they are. Consumers are misled. So, yes, I do support labelling.
The Liberal Party think that we have not done any consultation. But, as my colleague Ms Bresnan pointed out, we actually have done a lot of consultation. We had exposure drafts out for quite a number of months. We did talk to a number of supermarkets. Woolworths, which is the biggest supermarket in Australia, has, independently of us, come out and said that its customers are finding it so confusing when they buy eggs that, on a voluntary basis, it has decided to segregate the different types of eggs in its supermarkets because it can see that consumers cannot tell what they are buying.
Mr Hanson: Oh, come on!
MS LE COUTEUR: No, Mr Hanson. Maybe you do not buy eggs, but if you go to the supermarket you will find that they are labelled “vegetarian eggs”, they are labelled “omega 3 eggs” and they have pretty pictures of happy chickens none of
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