FOOD (LABELLING OF FREE-RANGE EGGS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (10:32): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Food Act 2001. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (10:33): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I thank other members for allowing me to be first and to introduce this bill on the Notice Paper this morning. This is a simple bill designed to put a restriction on the amount of hens—chickens—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Fifteen hundred, actually. I am seeking to have a bill instituted to give free-range egg producers the legality of having a maximum of 1,500 hens per hectare. This is similar to a bill that is going through the New South Wales parliament, and that bill is still in transition, but it was something that was raised by free-range egg producers in my electorate. They have been concerned for some time that they may be steamrolled, so to speak, by other egg producers who are not actually maintaining proper free-range practice.

Currently, there is no legal requirement on hens per hectare, and this is a labelling issue. There has been a push to have 20,000 hens per hectare in a free-range capacity—these are called free-range laying chooks. That is just inappropriate; 20,000 per hectare is an inordinately large number. I have a number of producers—and there are significantly more that we do not know about—who sell free-range eggs, but they are actually being competed with by others who call their eggs free range when they, to all intents and purposes, are not free range.

For example, the true free-range chicken has a laying cage or a laying shed and has unrestricted movement and access around the surrounds, the paddock, or whatever they happen to be in. In other words, they are free-range. They roost in the evening on their perches, they lay eggs in their sheds, which quite often are moveable sheds and are moved from place to place to avoid disease, but they are out and about all day.

There are other people who run free-range chickens in sheds, for example, that are climate controlled, where all the feed and water is inside, and obviously the laying cages are inside. However, at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, as was explained to me, the doors automatically open on these sheds, because at 1 o'clock in the afternoon most chooks are finished laying. That is the reality of it.

The Hon. R.B. Such: Just like parliament!

Mr PENGILLY: Yes, thank you, member for Fisher. They are finished laying and the shed doors open, but in many cases I am told that the hens simply do not go out, because they are that programmed to being inside that they just remain in there. Then, at a given time in the evening, the doors shut again. So, they are not in fact free-range eggs. I do not care what anyone says, they are not.

What I seek to do is to put some sort of legislation in place that 1,500 free-range egg-laying chickens per hectare is the way to go forward. I think it is a good idea. I have had consultation with some government members and members of other parties. My own party, the Liberal Party, supports what I am intending to do. I look forward to—

Mr Pederick: What about your good friends the Greens?

Mr PENGILLY: The member for Hammond can make his contribution shortly. It is also going to happen in another place that there will be similar legislation introduced by another party. That may well be the case next week and we will see what happens there. It is accepted by most in the industry that 1,500 chickens per hectare is the standard, so we want to keep it at that. We want to have it so that, when members in this place—many metropolitan members, particularly, unlike those of us who do have a few chooks in the backyard—go to buy free-range eggs, they are genuine free-range eggs. That is what it is all about. It is about the labelling.

I have one producer on Kangaroo Island who runs around 50,000 free-range chickens. I invite any member, if they happen to come over to the island, to come out with me and have a look because it is an amazing exercise. I have some producers who only run a few thousand, but they are genuine free-range eggs. The large producer over there employs around 20 people. They started from nothing and have done an amazing job. They have the Italian mountain dogs (I think they are called Maremmas) that actually guard the chickens—keep the eagles out, cats; the whole lot. They run free in the paddocks with the chooks and are intensely protective.

One day I went out there with Mr Tom Fryar, one of the owners, and Alexander Downer. We were told to sit there until he got the dogs under control. I am not quite sure whether the dogs wanted to bite Alexander Downer or me first, but these are very professional exercises. They employ considerable numbers of people not only around Australia but, more particularly in this case, in my electorate.

The Hon. R.B. Such: We buy their eggs.

Mr PENGILLY: Thank you. The member for Fisher says he buys Fryar's free-range eggs, and that is good. There are other families, like the Modras and the Barretts and many others. There was a considerable-sized free-range egg producer on Hindmarsh Tiers Road on the Fleurieu Peninsula, but I think they have gone out of business. However, there are possibly many, many others that we do not know about; small producers that are producing genuine free-range eggs, as opposed to the major egg companies.

I have done considerable consultation on this matter and we have had quite a bit of feedback. It is a rather different situation in New South Wales where the egg-producing industry is absolutely enormous. However, suffice to say, free-range eggs from my electorate are regularly sold in Sydney. They are in high demand. Let me tell you that 50,000 chooks lay a lot of eggs. They lay seven days a week. They do not rise at 6 o'clock and go home like this house. They are always working; so it is a seven day a week enterprise—like most farms—which employs a lot of people.

I am very grateful for the information that I have received from particularly the Fryar family, Kathy and Graham Barrett and others. I sincerely hope that we can move forward with this. They have codes of practice but they are actually not enforceable. I want to see small business thrive in this state, and I want to see people who produce free-range eggs have the opportunity to further their cause and to grow their businesses but to have that genuine free range category. I think that is the important issue.

I say, again, that you cannot have 20,000 chooks per hectare and call them free range. It is just totally stupid. It is a bit like feedlotting cattle and sheep. Really, it is no different to farming cattle or sheep in a feedlot or out in the paddock. In this case you are actually farming egg-laying chooks out in the paddock, and I think this is a good way to move forward. The danger is that, with voluntary codes of conduct, you could stand to lose a lot of these businesses if the big boys in the business—and I am not critical of them—choose to continue to call their eggs 'free range', despite the fact that they are not; they are just playing on words. We could lose a lot of these small businesses which have been developed with people's own capital and own hard work to become family businesses that have employed significant numbers over the last few years.

I do not know that I need to progress this debate much more now. I am unsure whether other members want to speak about it. I do urge the government to go away and think about it and to come back to the house. I await to see what is introduced in another place. That may well happen next week. I urge the house to support this private member's bill on free-range eggs legislation under the Food Act to limit the number of egg-laying hens to 1,500 per hectare.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.