Page 1075 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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I take Mr Barr’s point that the most obvious conversion is to barn facilities, but I do not want to rule out other facilities. Part of it is that I have a personal concern on public health issues in relation to barn laid facilities. None of these systems is perfect. Barn laid facilities have a whole lot of animal welfare issues involved in them as well. There are a lot of issues with pecking orders in barn laid facilities. Basically, weak chickens are bullied by strong chickens in any environment. They are less likely to be in a cage environment because there are only a couple of chickens in each cage, but when there are large numbers of chickens the pecking order issues do arise. They are significant, and they are significant animal welfare issues. And that is the case, too, with, especially, free range, where there are a lot of animal welfare issues in relation to predators.
There are no simple answers in this place. That is why I think that we should take a coordinated approach, through the primary industry ministerial council, to address these issues. But I also think that we should send a very strong message to the people of the ACT that we, as the legislators in the ACT, uphold the law and expect that people who advocate for particular causes in the ACT uphold the law.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (5.35): The government will not be supporting Mrs Dunne’s amendments. But—
Mrs Dunne: So you do not uphold the law either.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Let us hear from Mr Barr.
MR BARR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The predictable retort comes back across the chamber. To be clear, Mr Speaker, we are not condoning any criminal activity carried out at Parkwood farm last week. We do not condone criminal activity as a medium for protest. But we are not in the business of using this place to jeopardise future criminal proceedings when such activities occur, and there is no doubt that Mrs Dunne’s second amendment comes very close to crossing this line.
Nor are we interested in buying into a bit of game playing and blatant point scoring that would appear to be demonstrated by amendment (6). It is not necessary, Mr Speaker, for you to write to relevant advocacy groups encouraging them, when conducting protests, to do so lawfully and peacefully. I do not believe that is the role of the Speaker. Upholding the law is the role of every citizen in our community, Mr Speaker, so we see no particular need to support Mrs Dunne’s amendments.
I note that we reached agreement on amendment (3) through the previous discussion on Ms Le Couteur’s amendments.
As a result of this debate this afternoon, Mr Speaker, I hope we will have a way forward on this issue, the possibility to get an outcome that, while obviously it will not please anyone—it is rarely the case that you can please everyone—will be seen as an advance, and the opportunity, as I said earlier, to make a transition, to protect employment in the territory and to ensure a continued economic development focus for this part of the city.
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