Please cut and paste the objection below, adding your full name and address at the bottom and email to:

caseycc@casey.vic.gov.au
subject line: OBJECTION: Planning Permit Application P709/06

Dear Planning Manager,

OBJECTION: Planning Permit Application P709/06 "Use and Development of Land for Agriculture (Egg Farm), Rural Industry, Rural Store, Primary Produce Sales, Dam and Access to a Road Zone"

I have recently become informed of the above planning application and that almost 200 people have objected to this proposal to build an industrial complex for battery caged hens. I wish to add my strong objection to this proposal as it is an issue that concerns me greatly and affects me in several ways.

Huge industrial animal factory farms wreck havoc on our environment. This includes land clearing and water usage to produce the huge amounts of food to feed these animals. Feed production is only one aspect of water use needed by this intensive industry yet Australia is in the grips of a crippling drought. We should be doing everything we can to lessen our dependency on water use, not increase it. There is also the daily tonnage of animal faeces that must be disposed of into our environment on a regular basis.

I am gravely concerned about possible risks to human health that this proposal would create. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation just recently released a report highlighting the potential threats of huge livestock concentrations to public health, entitled Industrial Livestock Production and Global Health Risk. The authors of this report note that "while the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus of avian influenza is of major global concern, the "silent" circulation of influenza "A" viruses (I.A.V.s) in poultry and swine should also be closely monitored internationally. A number of I.A.V.s are now fairly widespread in commercial poultry and to a lesser extent in pigs and could also lead to emergence of a human influenza pandemic.." I am aware this huge industrial animal farm is proposed to abut the outskirts of Tooradin township. The ramifications of this frightens me in regards to possible disease outbreaks.

And finally, I believe it is unnatural, unhealthy and cruel to confine hundreds of thousands of animals, packed tightly together, inside windowless sheds. I am a consumer who does not want to have anything at all to do with products that cause great damage to our environment, pose threats to our community health and cause appalling cruelty to animals.

Thank you very much for your consideration in not approving this planning application.

Sincerely yours,

[add your full name and address]