Page 1066 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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(c) table details of all inspections of Parkwood facility in the last 2 years, including details on whether Parkwood complies with all applicable laws and codes of practice for animal welfare, and whether any cages or other infrastructure have been upgraded to improve conditions;
(d) table details of current ACT Government egg procurement; and
(e) report back to the Assembly in the May sittings.”.
In the short time left to me, I note that one of the reasons I think we should be very concerned about battery cage eggs, apart from the issues I have been through, is actually human welfare. I do not how many people have read what was reported in Saturday’s Canberra Times and it has been reported in many other places. I refer to the World Health Organisation’s warnings about the outlook for antibiotics.
They are saying that the world is entering into an era where injuries as common as a kid’s scratched knee could kill because we do not have the antibiotics we used to, where patients will gamble with their lives when they go into hospital, where what today is a routine operation such as a hip replacement is simply too dangerous to carry out because of a lack of antibiotics. The organ donations that we talked about earlier this week simply will not be happening because of a lack of antibiotics.
Why this is relevant to factory farming is that 80 per cent of the antibiotics consumed in the world are consumed in factory farming locations. If we could reduce that, if we could get rid of that, the use of antibiotics for humans would be much more assured. From the point of view of health and keeping us all happy and well, we would be vastly better off. I commend my amendments to the Assembly, and I thank Ms Porter very much for her motion.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.00): I too have amendments but on the advice of the Clerk I shall have to wait until Ms Le Couteur’s are dealt with and then seek leave to deal with those. But I have to address Ms Le Couteur’s amendments. I find it breathtaking that a member of his place who has been elected and charged with upholding the law could talk for 15 minutes about egg farming in the ACT and the ACT’s only egg farm and not mention the disgraceful actions of vandals who broke into the site the other day.
I also find it appalling that while Ms Porter mentioned the issue in her speech she could not bring herself in her motion to do anything to call on the Assembly to condemn these actions. These actions against the egg farm were vandalism pure and simple; so said Graham Downie in Sunday’s Canberra Times. He went on to say:
Failure by ACT Greens MLAs Caroline Le Couteur and Shane Rattenbury to immediately and unambiguously condemn the vandalism of the Parkwood Egg Farm makes them in my opinion unfit for re-election.
Vandalism is a scourge on the Canberra community, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. This cost is often borne by community groups who have every right to expect their elected representatives to take opportunities such as that presented last week to make no excuse for it.
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