Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I really do want to thank the member for La Trobe for taking the trouble to put forward this motion for the House to discuss. It is a really important issue and, I know, a subject of real passion for him. I fully support the motion that the member for La Trobe has put forward. I believe that testing on animals for cosmetic purposes should be banned in Australia, and I believe that because Australia has responsibilities beyond our borders we should also ban the sale, the marketing and the production of cosmetics in our country that have been tested on animals. I hold this view because I believe that testing on animals for cosmetic purposes is fundamentally unethical. I think there are some debates that we can have around the borders of the ethics regarding animal cruelty as to what can and cannot be justified, but the notion that we would put our quest for beauty as humans ahead of the rights of animals to live without pain is fundamentally incorrect. The idea that animals should die in pain so that we can have better lipstick or better moisturiser for our skin is fundamentally wrong.

I hold that view, and it is important to point out in debates like this that so do the vast majority of Australians. We know that somewhere around 85 per cent of women—who are the primary users of cosmetics—and around 80 per cent of Australians overall support a ban on the testing of cosmetics on animals. We can argue very passionately about these subjects in the House, as we often do, but as policymakers we do not do any favours to the public unless we recognise the complexities that are inherent in the regulation of this sort of issue. There are lots of community values that we have, but putting them into law is not always as straightforward as it sounds. That is what Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten had in mind last year when they asked me to run a national consultation in to the banning of cosmetics tested on animals in Australia to try to understand what some of those issues are and get to the bottom of whether this is possible and what the best legislative means would be.

Running this national consultation was really an extraordinary experience. We met with stakeholders, animal rights groups, cosmetic manufacturers and scientists—people from all over the country who have a view on this type of issue. We held public forums in six capital cities, where we spoke to hundreds of Australians about their beliefs. One of the best parts of this was that we enabled ordinary Australians to make submissions to this inquiry, and we received 14,000 submissions—14,000 people around this country put their names forward and put forward their views and ideas about this important issue. Just for reference, the Gonski review—this incredibly fundamental reform which will change how our schools are funded—received about 7,000 submissions. That just gives you a sense of how strongly so many Australians feel about this.

When we look at what came out of the national consultation—there is a report which I will put up online if people are interested to see it—firstly, it is crystal clear that there is a strong view in the community that this practice is unjustified. That support is growing over time. Some of the things that the member for La Trobe pointed out are absolutely correct. There is a view among scientists that animal testing is not really telling us much more than we can get from other tests. There are lots of issues with inferring results that we see in animal testing onto humans. Something else that I heard from a lot of people was that some people who argue against this process say, 'You could just look at the ingredients on the back of packages in supermarkets,' but that is not what consumers want. They do not want to have to reflect on ethics every time they go into the supermarket aisle get some toothpaste; they just want the law to reflect their values and I believe that that is possible.

It is important to note that the notion of applying this retrospectively was not supported by anyone that we consulted with. Even the animal welfare activists said to us that if we banned cosmetics that had already been tested on animals, those animals would have died for nothing. It is important, I think, that we maintain that principle when we talk with scientists and cosmetics companies about this. Very well-informed people from around Australia pointed out to us that this ban is absolutely possible because it has been done elsewhere around the world. The European Union is the largest organisation of governments so far to ban cosmetics tested on animals. They have shown that it is possible and so it cannot be beyond us here in Australia.

Finally, I would just say that it was a fantastic experience running this consultation. We saw that when we gave the public the chance to give their views they really stepped up to the plate; they took account of the complexities of the facts and they still ended up with this very strong view that cosmetics tested on animals should be banned, and I do support that. (Time expired)

See this speech in context