Free Range Canberra is a campaign and a registered political party. We aim to effectively ban the production of battery eggs in the ACT (making the ACT the first jurisdiction in Australia to do this), and encourage ACT consumers to buy free range eggs.

In 1997 legislation was passed to ban the production and sale of battery eggs in the ACT, however this legislation has never been enacted due to competition policy. The legislation still exists and Free Range Canberra plans to revive it.

Free Range Canberra ran candidates in the ACT election held on 16 October 2004. It was the first time an animal welfare party had ever run in the ACT.

Whilst the main aim of Free Range Canberra is to ban the battery cage, we did not run as a 'single issue' party. See our policies here and find out about our candidates here.

We asked voters to either Vote 1 Free Range Canberra, or consider voting us second or third.

THE CAMPAIGN

Much of the spotlight was taken from the ACT election (scheduled for 16 October 2004) when the Prime Minister called a Federal election for the preceding Saturday (9 October). All ACT parties and candidates found it hard to get coverage.

However, due to the hard work of our terrific volunteers we managed to distribute thousands of leaflets and get some good media coverage.

All volunteers and candidates found that the public reaction was extremely favourable to our cause.

THE RESULTS

Our first preference votes totalled a little less than 1500. Importantly, about 6% of voters included a vote for Free Range Canberra in their preferred assembly. That is, about 6% of voters included a vote for at least one of the FRC candidates in their first five preferences (Ginninderra and Brindabella which are 5 member electorates) or in the first seven in Molonglo (a 7 member electorate).

The results clearly indicate that Canberra voters regard the issue of battery cages as important.