Despite having seen him on the news hundreds of times over the years, this was actually the first time I had seen him speak live.  He does have an authoritative speaking style, and while I must admit I found myself wishing he’d spoken out on the issue a bit more strongly while he was Premier, he still spoke with conviction.

It is easy to be dismissive about the notion of cruelty towards meat chickens – also sometimes known as broiler chickens – who are sometimes confused with layer hens, (most of whom also live highly unpleasant lives of suffering, albeit usually for a bit longer).  When 450 million of them are killed and consumed by people in Australia in a single year, it is easy to assume that there isn’t a great deal of concern for the conditions these birds live in for their short existences. 

But I believe there are growing signs that more people are willing to support changes to reduce the serious suffering faced by many animals reared for food, as more in the community are made aware of the facts and recognise that often they do have consumer power.

There was significant example of this in the UK over the weekend, when Sainsbury’s – one of the four major supermarket retailers in Britain – announced they would stop selling eggs produced by caged hens.  Reportedly this means that “more than half a million hens will no longer be kept in the tiny cages – and 2.5million fewer battery-farmed eggs will be sold each week,” so it’s a single decision leading to a major improvement in hen welfare.  And it seems from these comments from Sainsbury’s egg buyer that they see this lower-cruelty option as a potential advantage against their competitors:

“We are delighted that all Sainsbury’s shoppers will now enjoy higher welfare eggs whilst the other major retailers still continue with over half their eggs coming from caged hens,”

This site by Animals Australia states that McDonald’s in the UK have also already swithced to using only cage-free eggs. The fact that has happened in Britain but not at McDonald’s in Australia can only be put down to public awareness and pressure. 

Last year in the UK, there was a significant increase in the sale of poultry raised with better welfare standards, following some significant media publicity featuring Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a celebrity chef over there.  

This report says that the RSPCA (UK) are hoping a new TV program featuring Jamie Oliver – a celebrity chef here as well as the UK – will help with their campaign to make similar improvements in the lives of pigs. 
The conditions faced by pigs in NSW were also the subject of a report released by Voiceless a few years ago. The report was endorsed by other major welfare organisations in Australia such as Animals Australia, Humane Society International (HSI), Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), (although I’d have to say the pace of any positive change since then has been fairly minimal.)

My impression is that, in general, the UK and Europe are more advanced than Australia when it comes to treatment of farm animals – although one can always point to exceptions – and there is less of the undertone of mockery that is still present in some of the political and mainstream media coverage of welfare issues for these animals.  But it still provides examples that the more solid credible evidence is compiled about the reality of animal suffering, and the more the general community is informed and recognises they do have consumer power, the closer we are coming to a critical mass where the right set of circumstances and people can combine to get some significant shifts.

Disclosure: I recently received a grant from Voiceless to compile a guide on campaigning and lobbying for animals.

But the result which really astonished me was on a proposition to set up a non-partisan authority to draw the electoral boundaries in the state. I wasn’t surprised that it passed, but I was amazed that it only just squeaked through – 50.7 per cent to 49.3 per cent! Maybe it’s just my Queensland upbringing, where Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s government used to draw their own electorate boundaries, but I find it hard to imagine why anyone – let alone 49 per cent of people – could support partisan boundary rigging. It’s almost like voting against democracy.

The results for all twelve Californian propositions held at the same time as their general election are at this link.  A much more positive and more comprehensive a result, with 63 per cent in favour, was a proposition that requires “calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely” (with exceptions for situations such as transportation, rodeos, lawful slaughter, research and veterinary purposes).

It might seem like a fairly mild reform, simply giving farm animals enough space to turn around, but it is not something you’ll see permitted in Australia any time soon.

Every system has its drawbacks, but while I am very disappointed about the result on the same sex marriage proposition, I still believe there is a lot going for giving voters the opportunity to hold such referenda.

One other positive feature of the process, at least in California, is the online provision of information to voters in six other languages, as well as English, outlining the case for and against the various propositions.

UPDATE: The American Civil Liberties Union and others have filed a court challenge to the validity of Proposition 8 – the one which sought to make same sex marriages unconstitutional. There will be some fighting over this issue for some time yet.