Page 4101 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 16 Sept 2009
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MR STANHOPE: It is; it is a bland assertion. On what basis do you stand in this place and say, “They are not serious when they say they would close the facility”? On what basis do you make that claim? They have told me they would. Why do you suggest that they are lying to me? That is what he said. On what basis do you assert that the general manager of Pace Farm was not telling me the truth when he told me that they would close that facility?
Mrs Dunne: He told me the same thing.
MR STANHOPE: On what basis do the Greens believe that Pace were lying; that he lied to me when he said that if cage production systems are banned in the ACT he will close the facility? I offered him $1 million to convert from cage to barn and he just said no. I said, “Why do you say no?” He said, “It would not go one-tenth of the way of covering the costs of conversion. It is commercially simply untenable to suggest that I would close this cage facility, convert the barn, on the basis of a $1 million support package from the ACT government. It is not as simple as that.”
It is a bland assertion. You make assertions about their intentions that contradict their statements to me. You make claims in relation to the conversion of the facility to free range, when the advice to me from my officials is that it would never support a free-range farm facility. These are some of the assertions in your presentation that cannot be sustained or substantiated. You are playing Russian roulette: “Let’s stare them out. Let’s dare them to close it. Let’s dare to suggest that they weren’t telling the truth, that they have no intention of maintaining a facility here if caged production systems are banned in the ACT.”
I am not prepared to assume that they were not being honest with me or to make that judgement. And I am not prepared to say, “We don’t have to worry. We can go to bed tonight, certain in our view that no jobs would be lost because they are not being serious.” In fact, Ms Le Couteur has just made the claim that employment would grow if they converted. They say there will be no employment; they will close the facility. You say, “No, they’ll just convert the barn. They’re just tricking you. They’re just trying to stare you out. In fact, employment will increase.” You have no basis on which to make those sorts of claims—none at all. All of the evidence is to the contrary.
Those are some of the facts. Those are some of the complexities. Those are some of the difficulties and the issues which the government, and indeed the opposition in their consideration of this issue, have grappled with and continue to grapple with. I am not prepared to just say, “They are not being honest with me; they are not being truthful,” and that they will in fact grow their workforce and not actually terminate it. I am not prepared to assume that they are not being honest with me, as you are doing—to comfort yourselves to suggest that not a single job would be lost; that if we actually take this step we will grow the employment base in the egg industry. You want to give yourselves comfort so you can walk out of here feeling all good and noble, with a warm inner glow: “Not only have we grown employment; we have saved all these chooks.” It is not as simple as that. It is not about the warm inner glow for no apparent advantage, the warm inner glow that you think or seek to achieve in relation to this.
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