10th May 2017, 5:36 PM – Senate Motions - Food Labelling - Review Standard

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, which means it was unsuccessful.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) recognises that:

(i) many Australian consumers deliberately choose free range labelled eggs to avoid the horrific cruelty of factory-farmed eggs,

(ii) the Model Code of Practice for Domestic Poultry reflects consumers' expectations that eggs labelled as free range are laid by chickens kept at a maximum density of 1500 chickens per hectare,

(iii) the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has for years successfully prosecuted unscrupulous egg producers for incorrectly labelling their intensively stocked chickens as free range,

(iv) the development of the Australian Standard for free range labelled eggs was intended to provide consumers with confidence that free range labelled eggs are laid by hens not suffering under intensively stocked systems of over 1,500 animals,

(v) the Government's newly announced Standards allow industrial egg producers and major supermarkets to label densities of 10,000 hens per hectare as free range, and

(vi) the new Standards do not meet community expectations of free range; and

(b) calls on the Government to review the Free Range Egg Labelling Information Standard to accurately reflect the density standard of egg-laying chickens, and to ensure that consumers have correct information about stocking densities.