In around 9 days time an ACT Greens-introduced Bill to ban the battery cage will be debated in the ACT Legislative Assembly. The four Greens MPs need help to pressure other MLAs to support this move to free hens from their tiny battery cages.
The Eggs (Cage System) Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 would outlaw the cruel practice of keeping hens for egg production in a cage system (with an 18 months phase out time). Unfortunately the ACT cannot ban the sale of interstate battery eggs in the ACT, but the Bill would require that battery eggs be displayed separately to cage-free eggs, and information would have to be provided to advise consumers of the welfare problems for (interstate) caged birds.
Here are some suggested points for your letter. Please put any you choose to use in your own words:
Battery caging of hens is cruel; a battery hen endures life in a tiny cage without exercise or the opportunity for normal behaviours such as scratching and pecking at the earth, perching, dust bathing and laying her eggs in a secluded nest. In a battery cage a hen cannot even stretch her wings.
The ACT Government has a unique opportunity to free 150,000 battery hens and to set an enlightened example to others as the first Australian jurisdiction to ban this terrible system of keeping egg laying hens.
The ACT Government is applauded for its own cage-free egg policy for catering in all ACT Government-owned facilities (adopted earlier this year).
Battery cages have already been banned by many countries (e.g. Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Austria), and the European Union is phasing out battery cages by 2012.
Australia has no deadline for the end of battery caging of hens. Without initiatives such as this one in the ACT, hens will stay in these cages for decades to come.
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