Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak to this report from the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee into a private senator’s bill, the National Animal Welfare Bill 2005, which I introduced into this place. I was quite disappointed by the approach that the committee took to this legislation. Without going into detail, it was very clear throughout the process that there was very little interest from some on the committee in engaging with the issue at all. Quite a dismissive approach was taken, and I think that is unfortunate. People do not have to share my views with regard to animal welfare to recognise that it is an important national issue and to acknowledge that there is definitely room for improvement. In many ways I think that not just the report but the way the issue was handled by the committee suggests that at a national level, in terms of the way the national parliament engages with animal welfare issues, we have actually gone backwards in recent years.

For quite some time, through the 1980s until 1991, there was a specialist Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare. It did a number of reports into a wide range of issues, sometimes with great impact. It managed in many cases to bring down unanimous reports with unanimous recommendations and engage with the community a lot along the way. It was a very valuable process that contributed quite significantly to advances in animal welfare practices in some areas in Australia, and its legacy is still felt now, 15 years after the committee was disbanded. Upon its disbandment one of the things that was said was that the then new rural and regional affairs committee would pick up some of these issues and that therefore the work of the committee would not stop dead but there would be continuing engagement with animal welfare issues.

That just has not happened. It has been extremely rare for this committee to look specifically at animal welfare issues. On the rare occasion when it has, it has been as an aside. I can recall one example with an egg levy bill when the extremely inadequate animal welfare standards of the egg industry were given some examination as an addendum to that legislation. But basically it is a matter that is very rarely looked at, and I think that is very unfortunate. My views on the issue are reasonably well known, but the intent of getting this issue before a committee was not to impose a specific approach to or a specific set of prescriptions for animal welfare but more to try to encourage a more consistent approach around the country and give it the priority that it deserves.

I have regularly said in this place that animal welfare issues are very rarely going to be a vote-changer; they are not going to shift which party is in government. But that does not mean that it is not an issue that people care about. If you see some of the public responses to particular circumstances, when they are made aware of animal cruelty, it is quite clear that a lot of people feel very strongly about the issue. It is also quite clear that we are not doing well enough in addressing animal welfare standards.

We have seen that just recently with the exposure on the This Day Tonight program of a piggery in South Australia. That piggery, I suspect, got more media attention because one of the investors in it was Senator Vanstone and therefore it became more newsworthy. I guess that is understandable, but from my point of view the issue was not who the investor was; the issue was the conditions in the piggery. The fact is that the conditions in that piggery were not particularly dissimilar to many other piggeries in Australia. We saw an open admission and acknowledgement that the sow stalls in that particular piggery were smaller than required under the standards and code of practice. But what happened? Nothing happened, because those standards and that code of practice are just advisory, a guide. They are not legally enforceable. Those were the sorts of responses that were given. It was clearly established that there is a code of practice and, in that, a requirement to provide a certain amount of space—which I think is still inadequate—but, even when it is not met and when the actual construction of the piggery is such that it is not possible for it to be met, nothing happens. That shows the inadequacy of many of the animal welfare standards in many states, the lack of consistency across states and the inconsistencies in enforceability in different states. I think that is unsatisfactory.

We have also seen the federal government in areas where it does have responsibilities, such as in live exports, clearly put animal welfare down at the bottom of the priority list, and I would add also animal welfare standards with regard to live imports. We have clear responsibilities with regard to animal welfare, with funding under the National Health and Medical Research Council. That does some examination of aspects of this area, but we do not even have a clear national register of how many animal experiments occur in this country. We do not even know what is happening out there and in that circumstance it is inevitable that we are not going to be properly enforcing adequate animal welfare standards. Regardless of what your view is about where those standards should be, I suggest that community standards are such that people would want them properly enforced and to be set at a level that does not cause unnecessary suffering. It is a pretty simple principle, really, and the fact that it is treated with such disdain by many senators in this place is very unfortunate, because it is an issue that a lot of people do think is important.

I emphasise that one of the other reasons why there is a strong social benefit in putting greater attention on animal welfare issues and stamping down on animal cruelty is that a direct link between people who engage in cruelty to animals and people who engage in abuse of and violence towards humans has now been clearly demonstrated. There has been talk amongst veterinary associations and others in the community about whether or not to implement mandatory reporting by vets who detect suspected animal abuse, in the same way that doctors and teachers in many areas are required to report suspected child abuse. That is because if somebody is engaged in abuse of an animal or flagrant cruelty towards a pet then there is a real chance that they either are or will be at some stage acting out similar behaviours towards others in their domestic household.

One of the positive initiatives that have demonstrated this along the way has been the work, particularly in Queensland, of the RSPCA and dvconnect, who have set up foster homes for pets, so that women who want to flee violent relationships or domestic situations have somewhere to take their pets to be looked after. The reason why people do not leave behind their pets when they flee violent domestic circumstances is that quite often clear threats are made that the animal will be harmed or killed. There are plenty of examples of that threat being carried out. So there are clear links between cruelty towards animals and similar actions towards humans. For that reason alone, I think it is in the public interest and in our interest to treat animal welfare issues much more seriously than we do. We should have a much more consistent approach towards animal welfare and reduce animal cruelty wherever possible. We should take an approach that recognises that it is something that should be dealt with consistently across the country rather than just selectively, in response to specific media attention or specific one-off incidents. It would be much better to have a consistent approach, a properly resourced approach and clearer social messages going out about the complete unacceptability of cruelty towards animals. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.