Page 1069 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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worth of economic impact, and that’s 14 jobs.” These are 14 blue-collar jobs. I have met the people who work there. They are usually new migrants. They are usually unskilled, and if they were not working at Parkwood they may not be working. And I am not prepared to just discount that and say: “Well, it’s not important. It’s only 14 jobs. It’s only $3 million.” For those 14 or 60 people, or whatever the number is in between, that is their livelihood. Ms Le Couteur went on television last week and said their livelihood did not matter; it was not significant in the greater scheme of things. Well, you tell that to their families when they are trying to pay their bills and buy their groceries.
I am not prepared to accept that these jobs are dispensable in a town where blue-collar jobs are few and far between, where unskilled jobs are hard to get. I am not in the business of attempting to put these people out of work. Ms Le Couteur stands condemned for her complete lack of caring for unskilled, usually new, migrants who probably would not be in work if they were not working at Parkwood.
There are many things that need to be said about the Parkwood facility. Ms Porter touched on it. There is no evidence that they run a rum outfit. I have been there; I have visited. They tend not to want to have very many visitors because of the biosecurity issues associated with it. They do want to work to keep the hens safe and healthy, and at the times that I have visited Parkwood I have had nothing but confidence in the work that is done by the management of Parkwood to keep the hens safe, to keep them disease free. Every time somebody breaches the biosecurity protocols, they put those hens at risk and they put the jobs of the people who work out there at risk. But this is something that the Greens do not care about.
There are considerable issues that I have concerns about, the commitment to transfer from cage production to barn production in particular. I was at one stage the agricultural adviser for the minister for the environment in the ACT and the briefings that I received and that he received on these matters indicated that there are significant public health risks with barn laid eggs, in particular because of the higher instance of E. coli in barn laid eggs. Because barn laid eggs lie on the ground for a lot longer, they are more likely to be covered with chicken poo and, because of the nature of chicken eggs, the E. coli transmits through the eggshell and across the membrane into the egg itself. So the public health risks associated with barn laid eggs are considerably higher than they are with cage eggs and, for some strange reason, free range eggs. As a result of this, I would never advocate the purchase of barn laid eggs from a public health issue. I will not let my family buy barn laid eggs from a public health point of view, because I do not want to put them at risk of diseases caused by E. coli.
The Canberra Liberals cannot support Ms Le Couteur’s amendments. I have some of my own amendments, but I understand from the Clerk that we have to deal with these first. These are significant issues. The Greens stand condemned today that they were not even prepared in this motion to discuss the vandalism that occurred at Parkwood the other day. The Greens stand condemned for their inability and unwillingness to address this issue. This was touched on somewhat yesterday by Mr Hanson as well. I understand that you, Mr Speaker, and he had a very colourful conversation in a fairly public place on this matter, which I think shows the sensitivity of the Greens on this issue. (Time expired.)
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