FOOD (LABELLING OF FREE-RANGE EGGS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 June 2012.)

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (10:44): In rising to speak to this bill that was introduced by the member for Finniss on 29 March 2012, being the Food (Labelling of Free-range Eggs) Amendment Bill 2012, I am pleased that the government seems to have come around to the fact that 1,500 hens per hectare is the appropriate amount for labelling, as far as labelling eggs from these hens as free-range eggs is concerned.

I note that, at the time this bill was introduced, the member for Finniss formed a rather unholy alliance with the Hon. Tammy Franks in the other place. I note that she moved it in terms of animal welfare, and I know that my friend the member for Finniss introduced this as a truth-in-labelling bill.

It has certainly been an interesting time over the last 15 months since this bill was introduced. There has been much lobbying from most players in the field, including the growers, whether they be biodynamic, whether they are true free-range or whether they are growers who want to get on the free-range egg bandwagon, to make sure that they benefit from having those eggs labelled how they want to get the maximum economic benefit for the eggs they produce.

On a personal level, I am quite happy to eat caged eggs. I have witnessed caged-egg production, and I think it is done very well. I have witnesses barn-laid egg production and I have witnessed free-range egg production. Just diverting a bit from the free-range debate, caged hens involved in caged-egg production have the lowest mortality rate in the production of eggs. So, that is just an interesting thing to note. Their nutrition and fluids are managed exceptionally, but that is not to say that it is not managed in the free-range environment; I just wanted to make that point.

There are various views on what should be called 'free range'. There has been a voluntary code of conduct in the past, with 1,500 hens per hectare being the sum amount in regard to what you can call free-range egg production, but we have recently seen a push where producers want to have 20,000 hens per hectare. To me, 20,000 hens per hectare sounds like barn laid, where they get access to an area outside if the hens feel like it, and that does not seem to me to be strictly like free-range egg production.

I have witnessed an example of this, up at Two Wells. I also note that there are other differing views; Coles, which seems to be on the animal welfare bandwagon, indicated that its arrangement was for 10,000 hens per hectare. We have different ranges of producers, as I indicated. We have producers which have 750 hens per hectare, and we have others which grow them at 125 hens per hectare.

Last November, when I was the shadow agriculture spokesman for the Liberal Party, I went with the member for Finniss and met with a few growers on Kangaroo Island who are doing a great job in their free-range egg production. They are in an interesting part of South Australia because obviously they do not have to worry about foxes, so they do not need to have any fencing. So, it is a very appropriate place to be involved in free-range egg production.

The property of Graham and Kathy Barrett at Katham Springs was one of the properties I visited. They grow biodynamic free-range eggs, and I believe that they run their hens at about 125 hens per hectare. Then there is Tom and Fiona Fryar, who have been running 50,000 hens over their property. These people have done a great job in their family operations. I note that Tom Fryar comes from a shearing background, so he has had to work hard to get where he has got; I was a shearer in the past, and I know what it is like. He and his wife and family have done a great job in getting to where they are, and they are a real success story not just for Kangaroo Island but for South Australia. I want to read part of the submission that Tom Fryar put to us at an egg forum on 27 June 2012, as follows:

Kangaroo Island Free Range Eggs was started 20 years ago with 400 laying hens and these were stocked on 40 hectares. We now have 50,000 hens stocked on 1,600 hectares. We have invested approximately $6 million on land and infrastructure to farm hens at stocking density rates of less than 1,500 per hectare, while abiding by the Code of Practice for the Welfare of Animals—Domestic Poultry 4^th Edition.

The South Australian government must help us keep stocking density at no more than 1,500 chickens per hectare because we can't change to 20,000 with our system and can't compete with intensive so-called free range. It would be detrimental to our business which then flows on as being detrimental to the families of our 18 employees.

The 20,000 hens per hectare is not sustainable. In the video that the Australian Egg Corporation Ltd has shown to try and convince consumers that 20,000 per hectare is okay, you can clearly see that not many hens are ranging. Where are the other 19,500 hens? How can the eggs laid from these hens be labelled free range when most of the hens aren't venturing outside? They should be labelled barnyard. There are not enough pop holes. There are no shade trees. There is no feed and water outside to encourage the hens outside.

To help everyone understand that it is not a sustainable situation, please consider the following information. Hens will eat a minimum of 30 grams of pasture per day, times 20,000 hens equals 600 kilograms per day which equals 200 tonnes per year. Productive land can grow only around seven tonnes per hectare per year. If 20,000 hens were ranging on one hectare of land it would be a dust bowl in a week. 20,000 hens will produce 3,200 kilograms of manure per day, that is over 1,000 tonnes per year. If half of this is deposited in the shed and half on the range, that is over 500 tonnes on one hectare of land 100 metres by 100 metres. Fifteen semi-trailer loads of manure on one hectare per year is not sustainable and presents significant issues for the Environment Protection Authority.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: I am reading from Tom Fryar's submission. It continues:

There is less than half a hectare range area between sheds and they are running approximately 13,000 hens per shed. Consumers would be horrified if they paid a premium for these so-called free range eggs. We believe consumers are being misled and confused with the term 'free range'.

The government should help us enforce 1,500 hens per hectare as I believe this will open up huge export opportunities for South Australian free range egg producers. We have had buyers from Dubai wanting us to sign contracts to supply eggs by the container load. We have had a Chinese consortium visit our farm and they want us to supply two container loads per week of free range eggs into Hong Kong. That is double what we produce now. Upon asking why the interest in our Kangaroo Island free range eggs the answer is always, 'We want the best quality product, true to label and farmed naturally and environmentally sustainably.' We exported into Hong Kong in small quantities some years ago. There are currently no South Australian egg producers exporting out of this country.

We believe a very simply solution to all of this is to leave free range egg production at a maximum of 1,500 hens per hectare and anything over this can be labelled barnyard because they live in a barn without a small yard.

In my closing comments, the Australian Egg Corporation lobbied us heavily to get that number lifted to 20,000. We, on this side of the house, have got no problem with people running hens at 20,000 per hectare, but we do not want them being labelled as free range eggs, so that our true free range egg growers can be supported and produce this great quality product not just for our consumers here in South Australia, but interstate, and also the potential to grow their business into overseas markets and do this great work. I believe that everyone can get on in this space. Everyone just needs to see the reality that labelling is the key.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (10:54): As a veterinary surgeon, obviously animal welfare is one of the areas that I am extremely interested in. It has been an area in which I have been able to introduce legislation in this place to improve the lot of dogs, and certainly I have enjoyed participating in the changes and modernisation of the Veterinary Surgeons Act and the Animal Welfare Act. The bill that the member for Finniss has put before the house is a very sensible bill. It does talk about food labelling, and that is the main issue that most people are concerned about. People want to know that what they are seeing is what they are getting, and the labelling of a product that really is not being produced in the way that it is purported to be I think is something that we should take very seriously, whether for free-range eggs, as in this case, or a 'Made in Australia' label, for example.

The issue behind this, obviously, is that people want to buy free-range eggs because they want those chooks to be living in as natural a condition as possible. I have eight chooks at home and they have 400 acres to wander around on. Unfortunately, they do not do that. They all come back and they lay their eggs in the roost at night, and we keep that lovely and clean. The chooks can go out and eat the chook food that we buy for them, plus they do forage. With all the eggs we have given away to friends, we always get compliments on the quality of those eggs. That is probably the ultimate in free range, when you have 400 acres for eight chooks.

The issue here though is: do we accept that 20,000, chickens per hectare is acceptable, 1,500 chickens per hectare or eight chooks per 400 acres? To be practical about this, what we are talking about is not the misrepresentation of a product as being free range, natural, environmentally friendly and sustainable where you have 20,000 chickens per hectare. Remember, a hectare is 10,000 square metres or 100 metres by 100 metres, so it is not a huge area.

Having 20,000 chickens in that area, as we have heard from other members, is a lot of manure and a lot of foraging, and it is completely unsustainable. It is an artificial situation we are putting those chickens into. People will argue that 1,500 chickens per hectare is artificial, but it is a far more tolerable situation for both the chickens and the producers, and I think it is an arguable case that the area that the chickens have to range around in, fossick in, forage in, scratch in and peck in is much less of a pressure cooker area than if there are 20,000 chickens per hectare.

The need for chickens to be able to lay eggs in a clean and hygienic environment is something that I am very aware of, because all eggshells, if you look at them closely, have millions of little pores and it is not just a solid wall of calcium. Eggs have a porous surface and a newly-laid egg has a layer of mucous over it. Until that mucous dries, there is the ability for bacteria and viruses to penetrate into those eggs, so you do need to have a hygienic situation or location for chickens to lay their eggs. Whether your eggs are free range, cage laid or, as in our case at home with domestic chooks, you have to make sure that those newly-laid eggs are given the opportunity to dry out without being in a contaminated area so that there is no chance of contamination of the eggs.

We should remember that one way that we develop vaccines is that eggs are injected with viruses and bacteria. Eggs are a terrific medium for the growing of bacteria and viruses, but we do not want that to happen in the eggs that we are going to consume every day. We need to make sure that those eggs are laid in as hygienic a situation as possible where they can dry out and be the product that we want them to be.

The issue behind free-range eggs fits in with all the other animal welfare issues. We see that there is sow stall-free pork, and the live export of sheep and cattle is being questioned. Animal welfare, unfortunately, is one of those areas where people become very anthropomorphic about their views. In other words, they give animals the same emotions, feelings and thoughts that we have as human beings.

I can tell you, having worked with everything from canaries to elephants and snakes—you name it: dogs, cats, horses, cattle, pigs, goats—I have been around a lot of animals, and some of them are far more intelligent than others, and there is a range within the species. There are some pretty dumb dogs and there are some very smart dogs, just as there are some very fast horses and some very slow racehorses, and the only race they would win is against a greyhound. The need to make sure that animals are able to be in a stress-free environment, though, is different from giving them the attributes, emotions, thoughts and intelligence that we have as human beings.

I strongly encourage everybody who is interested in animal welfare—and that should be all of us in this place—to have a look at how animals in the wild behave. Cats, for example, are the ultimate creature. I think cats and cockroaches would survive the Holocaust. They sleep for anything up to 20 hours a day, and they spend the rest of the time hunting and gathering and doing whatever they need to do to survive so that they can breed; and that is what it is all about. It is not about having a pleasant, happy life; it is about eating, surviving, breeding, and making sure the species continues.

We need to look at what we are doing to animals, putting them in artificial situations, whether it is in sow stalls, cattle feed lots, or in this case, free-range chicken production. We must be very careful about what we wish for, because if our views of animal behaviour, intelligence and attitudes do not genuinely reflect their roots, origins and basic purpose in life, then we can inadvertently kill off a whole industry in some cases. We could have products that are going to be far more inferior to those being produced anywhere else in the world, so we could be putting our manufacturers and producers at a distinct disadvantage.

Do not think that because we aim for the highest standards of animal welfare in Australia, which we should all be doing, that it is always going to be to our advantage. We cannot stop, unfortunately, the terrible conditions that we have seen on our televisions that we know go on in other countries that are less developed than ours. We can do all we can to help overcome those situations. The Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation certainly should have been doing a lot better than it has been, in my opinion. We need to make sure that we, in Australia, do not price ourselves out of the market so that we end up drinking milk from New Zealand and eating eggs from China and pork from Canada.

We need to make sure that we have a home-grown domestic economy. However, if that home-grown product—in this case free-range eggs—is going to be extremely expensive to produce and prohibitive for the average consumers to buy, then that is a concern. We need to have a balance in this place. So, 20,000 chickens per hectare certainly is not free range, and you cannot describe it as being free range. I think a good balance is 1,500 hens per hectare.

Consumers who want to buy eggs from chickens that are kept in a more exclusive situation than that, or a completely open situation—as you would see with a lot of domestic chooks that are being kept—pay about $5 or $6 a dozen, and most consumers cannot afford that. They can afford the price at the moment for the true free-range eggs, but they cannot afford to buy these expensive eggs, and so they are missing out on a very good nutritional product. Who wants to deny our kids a boiled egg or a bit of scrambled egg when they want it?

We in Australia underestimate the lucky country we live in. Our standards of animal welfare are very high, but there are some concerns. Certainly I will be doing all I can as a vet to make sure that the Veterinary Association, members in this place, my constituents, and other people in South Australia continue to advance the cause of animal welfare so that we have a product that is not only going to be palatable, consumable and of the best quality, but one that will be produced from animals that are not under stress, not under pressure, and, in this case, truly free-range.

Mr PEGLER (Mount Gambier) (11:04): I rise to support this motion by the member for Finniss on the labelling of free-range eggs. The member for Finniss organised a meeting for us to consult with several egg producers, and it certainly came to my attention the skulduggery that goes on in the industry concerning free-range eggs. I never bother buying free-range eggs because I have no faith whatsoever in the labelling of those eggs. If you look at the position where there are 20,000 chooks per hectare, that is basically two chooks to every square metre, and there is no way known that that is free range.

I certainly support the changes that are proposed where it would be 1,500 chooks per hectare. I am also a great believer that consumers should have faith that the labels that are on the products that they buy are actually indicative of what they are actually purchasing. When they go to a shop to buy free-range eggs, they should actually be free-range eggs and not being run under the conditions that the chooks are presently.

I think the other important issue to consider is that we must ensure that, when eggs are brought into this state from other states, they are also subject to the same rules. If an egg producer in South Australia is producing free-range eggs at 1,500 chooks to the hectare or less, the same has to apply to those eggs that are imported into this state. Without any further ado, I indicate that I will be supporting this bill.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:06): I also rise to support the bill. My thoughts on this differ a little from some of my colleagues. I do not see this as an animal welfare issue, although there may be animal welfare issues within the egg-producing industry, and I accept that. However, this particular issue raised by the member for Finniss is all about consumers being able to reliably expect to get what they are buying, to be able to reliably expect that when they see a label, the image that is portrayed in their mind by that label is in fact what occurs in the production of the product that they are purchasing.

I think that is what this is about and I think the member for Mount Gambier put it quite succinctly when he said that he just does not trust the labelling on free-range eggs. Unfortunately, I suspect that there are a huge number of consumers out there who are fooled by the free-range label on egg cartons in our supermarkets, and that is the injustice that the member for Finniss is endeavouring to correct in this matter that we are discussing today.

The member for Morphett pointed out that a hectare is merely 10,000 square metres. If you have 20,000 chickens on 10,000 square metres, that is two to the square metre. If you have 1,500, it is one chicken per 6.666 recurring square metres. The member for Hammond said that a chicken will consume 30 grams of grass a day. I take him at his word on that; I have no idea. I have some understanding of the carrying capacity of the landscape for carrying sheep or cattle. I have little or no idea of the carrying capacity for chickens, but I can guarantee that you would not carry two chickens on a square metre of land. I do know that.

Mr Pegler: How many dry chooks to the acre?

Mr WILLIAMS: How many dry chooks to the acre, as the member for Mount Gambier points out? I do not know.

An honourable member: What's the dry sheep equivalent?

Mr WILLIAMS: A dry sheep equivalent is a 45-kilogram sheep, dry, maintained in condition. I do know that. I can probably tell you in the Lower South-East how much dry matter you will produce per acre in each month of the year as well, but that has nothing to do with this. Actually, it has got a lot to do with this, to be quite honest, but I do not know the relevant figures with regard to chickens.

What I do know is that, when a consumer goes into a supermarket and they see free-range eggs, they have an assumption in their mind that the eggs are produced by chickens that are foraging in a free-range environment, are actually obtaining their food from the area that they are allowed to forage on and are producing the eggs in what we would describe as a natural sort of way.

That is certainly not the case. I suspect that that is probably not the case even at the number of 1,500, but I think the compromise that the member for Finniss seeks to have us adopt at 1,500 is probably a fair compromise and it probably would indeed meet the expectations of those consumers. It is because of that that I support what the member has brought to the house.

I think there is a huge number of labelling issues which we should be addressing as a nation. Most of them, I suspect, need to be addressed by our federal parliament on a national basis rather than by this parliament but, as a food producer and having been a food producer for most of my life, I am aware—very much aware—that we have huge problems with labelling in this country. It is not just about Australian-made or the quantity of Australian production or even product that goes into things that are labelled Australian-made, but it is about the way in which foodstuffs are produced. There is a whole range of issues which I think should be addressed in the food labelling area which just are not addressed and, as I said, they should be addressed by our federal parliament.

I think this is an important step in the right direction by the member for Finniss. It comes to mind also that we have just seen in the egg industry that apparently an interstate producer is selling eggs whose labelling gives the image to consumers that they are produced in the Barossa Valley when they are not produced in South Australia at all. That is another issue that I think should be addressed forthwith. I certainly commend the member for Finniss for bringing this matter to the attention of the house.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (11:11): I also rise to support the bill introduced by the member for Finniss and congratulate him for doing this. As the member for Mount Gambier has indicated, I also have concerns about the true labelling of not only eggs but all of the produce in Australia. When you buy something, you want to know that what you are paying for is what you are getting.

The member for Finniss is to be congratulated. I remember at the start of his journey on this proposed bill that he arranged for some meetings in Parliament House, and I went to those meetings and it was a bit surprising to hear the difference in the attitude and the information that we got from the various organisations.

I have one fairly large free-range operation in my electorate, and that is Rohdes at Tarlee. They have what I consider are true free-range birds. They do not overstock their grazing facility. They have got about 5,000 hens there. I must say that chickens do not lay the eggs, as the member for Fisher indicated before: it is the hens that lay the eggs. We need to be very clear about that. If you are going to run 20,000 hens, or fowls, per hectare that is not humane, in my opinion. You will deplete the natural food in the area and they will not get any true indication of relaxation or exercise. The figure suggested by the member for Finniss of 1,500 hens per hectare is a good compromise. I certainly will be supporting this bill, and I again congratulate the member for Finniss for bringing it to our attention.

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (11:13): I am sure I say it every Thursday morning, but I love Thursday mornings. It is amazing what you can learn when you sit in this chamber and listen to the contributions from others. I commend the member for Hammond for the information he was able to provide to us about the capacity of land to absorb, in this case, hens (chickens) and the member for MacKillop—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: And their waste.

Mr GRIFFITHS: And their waste, indeed, and how that impacts. It comes back to the reason the member for Finniss put this bill before us, and it all comes back to truth in labelling. From my point of view, I only have the low-level chicken experience of having a chance as a child to collect eggs on my grandparents' farm and my wife's family farm. We would take the little kids out to do that. When Donna and I built a home in Orroroo, we put a chook pen in the back and had eight chickens which my father-in-law described as 'designer chooks', because they were different colours. I do not know why he called them designer chooks, but it is all part of the experience of life.

This comes back to an absolutely critical issue of when a consumer—the people that we are here to represent—purchases a product and the knowledge and confidence they can have about the labelling on that product about whether it actually means what it says. So, when the member for Mount Gambier says that he has no confidence in it and he does not buy it—as in free-range eggs—I can understand that.

The criticism I have of this is not levelled in any way towards those who engage in intensive animal keeping. In the electorate of Goyder, there are a vast number of chicken sheds that engage in intensive animal keeping, but it is for the meat purpose not the egg opportunity that it represents. That has been a vitally important growth opportunity for the electorate. It has had some great needs, but when it has done well it has provided some good employment opportunities for people.

When you listen to the argument, I think it is fairly easy to make the decision quite quickly. When the member for Finniss proposed the bill to the Liberal party room, it was on the sound basis of ensuring that the consumer had the opportunity to be confident in what they were buying, so there is no risk of marketing opportunity which reflects on what the consumer is prepared to pay.

As now only a retail consumer of the product, on a recent trip to a supermarket I bought what was defined as being 'caged eggs'. I am pretty sure it was about $3 per dozen—certainly the free-range option is far more expensive than that—but it represents a different purchasing opportunity for people. So, it is important that the parliament actually ensures that it does what it can to make sure that, when people take the money out of their pocket, they are actually getting what they pay for.

I support the bill. The member for Finniss has not done this is lightly. He has consulted widely, not just with people in his own community but across the electorate and with the industry and in other states. He has brought it here in all seriousness to ensure that we put in place a bill that reflects the need to preserve the consumer's confidence and, importantly, to give the growers, who are investing a significant amount of money in marketing a product based on a style of production, some confidence that they are going to be competitive because they are competing equally.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:16): I rise to speak on the free-range egg legislation introduced by the member for Finniss and commend him for this initiative. I am reminded of the occasion when, after nine male speakers, Margaret Thatcher once, addressing an after-dinner speaker's engagement, said, 'The cock might crow but it's the hen that lays the eggs.' May I firstly disclose that I do not currently own any poultry. My brother currently has two, who are regular layers. My son has had two, but members would probably accept that they were not fated for egg production as much as the pot, given that their names were Tasty and Delicious.

The guideline option presented by the government—that is, to have a code of practice—which was suggested earlier this week by the Attorney-General as being the more effective means to manage the disclosure and transparency under the labelling for the benefit of consumers, is utterly rejected. It is puzzling that the Attorney would present this as an argument to defeat this bill, given that he has been hell-bent in other areas of legislation on insisting upon having legislative protection and not relying on voluntary codes of practice.

The most important aspect of this bill, in my mind, is that either the Attorney-General has failed to understand the significance of the economic implication of his proposal or he has not addressed it at all; that is, to impose the guidelines he has in mind will, in fact, put current operators out of business. Again, it is just illustrative of the government's ignorance of the significance of what is actually going on in the real world.

There are current producers of free-range eggs, who are the basis upon which the member for Finniss has introduced this legislation, as they put representations to him of the importance of protecting the brand and the opportunity to provide a genuine product to the consumers, who increasingly demand some transparency in getting what they buy. One of those was Tom and Fiona Fryar, who have a very good business on Kangaroo Island. Tommy Fryar was in my class at Parndana Area School, before it became the Parndana campus of the Kangaroo Island schools. I will not go there—because, of course, it is had an utter demise under this government.

Nevertheless, Tommy was in my class. He came from a family down at the western end of Kangaroo Island. They did not have much by way of any financial support—probably close to nothing. In fact, their neighbours, the Ordways, also married into the Fryar family. They went into the chicken business and Tommy went into the egg business. Both have been enormously successful in taking on a risk, taking on a challenge, with little or no support or financial buffer to get them going—good on them! They have carved out a highly respected area of interest, bringing new markets and industry to Kangaroo Island. As has been said by other speakers, Kangaroo Island is blessed in not having any rabbits or foxes, the natural predator of chooks, so has some significant benefit in being able to operate free range without having to have the impediment of secure fences and the like.

There has been some continuing predation on the hens and chicks on Kangaroo Island, namely by eagles and other predatory birds. I understand that the most novel way to deal with this on Kangaroo Island is to allow dogs to run free range in the paddocks. They live, operate and earn their keep by running around in the chook paddocks and they help keep away the eagles and other predators.

It is a very happy, harmonious, well-planned, well-serviced industry, which has been embryonic by people like Tom and Fiona Fryar and which has developed into a secure employer for the people of Kangaroo Island. We obviously have other investment from Kangaroo island, which has developed the industry, and for the government to simply say, 'Well, we're going to only look at the tangent of animal welfare, and we're going to introduce a guideline process,' and not understand that there is a significant economic disadvantage in what they are doing, obviously indicates the limitation of their peripheral vision on these types of matters.

The most important aspect is that the guidelines will allow for 20,000 chickens, hens or birds per hectare to flourish and the operation can still be described as free range, inconsistent with what the industry currently accepts, that is 1,500 birds per hectare. For other members who have significant intensive chicken industries in their electorates, usually for meat, for poultry breeding, they of course have very high intensification in their industry.

Those who have been in these sheds will understand that the little yellow chicks are brought in on day one, and that they have a fenced off area within a shed usually. As the chickens grow and become white and develop in size, the ropes are extended down the shed and they take up the full area. I think after about 60 days they are loaded back up in the truck, having never seen daylight, and they are taken off to become the meat produce that we see in chicken shops today.

It is unlike the old days, when of course chicken was a luxury that you had once a year at Christmas, but from which you enjoyed the eggs all year round. I commend the member for Finniss for bringing this important piece of legislation to the attention of the parliament. It clearly has across-the-board support, except from the government, which, as usual, has been churlish and narrow in its vision in not accepting what is a very sensible idea, all because it wants to take the credit.

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (11:23): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The house divided on the motion:

Majority of 4 for the ayes.

Motion thus carried; debate adjourned.