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The Jury is Still Out

Sheez…Tamarix Poultry Pty Ltd. want to build a mega battery egg factory right smack on the South Gippsland Highway on Tooradin’s doorstep! Not only don’t they care about the suffering of the hens but they obviously have no hesitations plopping their stinky business literally on a local township by the sea. Well the locals are rightly up in arms and ALV is right there with them in trying to do all we can to stop this horror from going ahead.

The small township quickly gathered 42 objections and numerous signatures on petitions against the proposal. When ALV found out about this we widely circulated news of it and the objections swelled to 361 (thanks to all of you who so quickly acted on this - well done guys!!) And then in December at the monthly Tooradin market concerned locals and ALV had a stall where a further 207 objections were quickly signed up - mostly by local residents - swelling the total number of objections to 568 and counting!

The local Casey Council voted unanimously against the proposal after the then mayor, Colin Butler spoke passionately for his motion not to allow this planning permit to be approved. So off it was to VCAT (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal), for a three day hearing (Jan 21-23) after the applicant, Tamarix Poultry appealed the decision (and the failure of the Council to make it ‘in time’). ALV was refused standing by the Vice President of VCAT to participate in this hearing (more on this in a later post!), but we still attended as public observers and had to sit still and not say a word…. hhhhmmmmmmmmm that was so hard, I truly felt like I wanted to put a piece of black tape over my mouth the whole time I sat there. Or better put, I felt like a battery hen where they had no voice at all, even though it was ALL about them.

But the local residents (who had standing) and the solicitor for the Casey Council did a great job in putting their case forward against the application. The two Members hearing the matter said after hearing all the evidence they will visit the site and reserved their decision. This is expected to be handed down in the next two weeks. You will be notified of the result on this blog FOR SURE… as there is no way we can allow yet another animal torture concentration camp be built in our community. You can start writing letters to the papers now, Click here for background information and while you’re at it, please sign up for the ALV writers group. Carmen does an excellent job circulating items that need your fingers pumping on the keyboard. together for the hens!