Page 4097 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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which are in battery cage systems. It is only if you take the eggs home, have got nothing else to do and are sitting looking at the package that you might see, in really small font, that it says “cage”.
Mr Coe: Do you think people are smart?
MS LE COUTEUR: People are smart; I agree with you, Mr Coe. But people need information to be smart with. This is one of the fundamental things of the capitalist market economy. The ethical justification of capitalism in a market economy relies on information to the consumers, and that is what, with labelling, we want to see happen.
Moving away from the labelling issue, I would like to talk about the argument that whatever we do here in the ACT will just lead to Parkwood moving over the border and nothing being improved except business moving out of the ACT. We think that is a highly unlikely event. As Ms Bresnan has pointed out, Parkwood have actually a really good deal from the ACT government. Not many people have a rent of $486 a year for 41 hectares. So I think it is highly unlikely that Parkwood would move for that economic reason. The other reason that they are not very likely to move is that we do know there is an undersupply of free-range eggs in Australia. Work done by the New South Wales Greens has demonstrated that.
So we believe that Parkwood, if this ban were to be passed, would probably go and talk to the Chief Minister and say, “That million dollars you had on offer—yes, we really would quite like it now.” They would also acknowledge what they must realise—that their current cages in fact do not, we understand, meet the cage egg code of conduct; the doors are too small. They are going to have to refurbish their facilities if they wish to stay legal anyway. Given all of that, were this ban to be passed, Parkwood would take up the ACT government’s kind offer and make a free-range egg facility, which would employ more people than are currently being employed in the cage egg facility. I should also point out that Pace, of course, do produce free-range eggs and barn eggs in other places—just not in the ACT.
There has been a lot of talk in this debate so far about leadership and a national approach. My comment here is that a national approach does require some jurisdiction to lead. The ACT is possibly the best jurisdiction to lead because we actually do in fact have only one cage egg production facility. It will not be a major impact on the ACT economy. I can quite see the arguments: when Mr Stanhope goes and talks to his ministerial colleagues and says, “I really think that you should ban eggs in your jurisdiction,” they are going to say to him, “But, if you think that, why didn’t you do it?” I cannot see that Mr Stanhope can very effectively advocate for something which he is not actually—
Mr Stanhope: No, Caroline. I said, “I will do it immediately you do. We will all do it together.”
MS LE COUTEUR: Yes, exactly, Mr Stanhope. Someone has to lead, and we believe the ACT is the jurisdiction that should lead.
In summary, I would just like to say that this is good legislation. In passing this legislation, we would only be moving ourselves up to the express views of
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