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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-14 Daily Xml
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FOOD (LABELLING OF FREE-RANGE EGGS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 March 2012.)

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (10:57): I will be brief. I commend the member for Finniss for bringing this to the house, and I understand that he has organised a journey, with a consultation process and a meeting, in the very near future. This is an issue that needs to be addressed. It has been addressed in other parts of the world—in Europe and in the UK—but we in Australia for some reason seem to have difficulty in properly labelling things.

An inquiry was recently conducted by Dr Neal Blewett, and we still have not got to a point where we have, in my view, proper labelling of products. We still have this nonsense about 'product of Australia', where cardboard cartons can be counted and all that sort of nonsense. I commend any change because, if you are an honest producer, you should not have anything to hide. If a product is genuinely free range—in terms of eggs or meat—it should say so and make it quite clear.

The ACCC has prosecuted some producers for making false claims about free range products. Those people who are not producing free range but claim to be are getting an advantage over genuine free range producers. We have quite a few excellent free range producers on Kangaroo Island, some in McLaren Vale, and I think in the Mid North as well. Those people should not be subjected to unfair competition because some big organisations—particularly in Victoria, where they crowd chooks into big sheds and then need to roster to allow them out for a minute or two because so many are trying to get out of the little exit—or big producers are not producing on a free-range basis but are selling and labelling their products as free range. I commend the member for Finniss. I hope that we get an outcome in the not too distant future where people can know exactly what they are buying in an honest and transparent way.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (10:59): I am not sure whether I have spoken on this bill. I do not think I have, but it is certainly one I would always make a comment about because it is a subject that has been put before this house for some years. I have several constituents who have made their livelihood out of eggs. Even in our younger days we had chooks ourselves, but since being in this place I have never been home to look after them. My wife refused to have them so we do not have them anymore.

I agree that this issue certainly needs to be clarified. Our family has always cherished eating eggs from hens that naturally foraged and picked the food that they wished to eat from the ground. It makes a huge difference to the egg that you are eating, the colour of it and also the nutrition that is in the egg. This issue certainly needs to be clarified in the definition of what is a free-range egg. As the member for Fisher just said, I do not believe chooks running around the floor of a large shed is free range at all.

I think that free range is a hen running free in the open and being able to graze and forage for itself the minerals and other things it wishes to eat over, say, five or 10 acres. I am looking at 10,000 fowls over, say, a five to 10-acre paddock—a small paddock. What happens is that they rotate these paddocks. They let them in and they move them from one to the other, and, in that way, the paddocks replenish and in that way the soil condition is maintained.

I think that we really need to tighten in that 'free range' definition. Free range means free range—that is outside being able to fend for themselves and having their shelter across to one side, and at night they go in and roost in their shed and during the day they are free to roam in open space, in a paddock, without any flooring or anything whatsoever.

The second issue is the labelling. How do we tell the consumer what is in this packet? I now buy eggs, which is most unusual for us. I now buy eggs in the Tanunda supermarket. I go there and I look and just try to work out what is what because the labelling is confusing. It just says 'large' or 'super large', and, when you open them, the colours do vary, and the colour of the shell varies. I suppose it is a different coloured chook.

I just think that labelling ought to be more simplified and quite clear as to what is a free-range egg, as well as the size of them and the age of them. Certainly I do support food labelling for free-range eggs. I congratulate the member for Finniss on his bill. I certainly support it. One of life's pleasures is an egg in the morning. I have two every morning and I look forward to that. It is good, healthy food, and I hope I am standing testament to that. I certainly support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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