David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to tell you a story about Foamie the Sheep. Foamie debuted in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' recent attack on Australia's wool industry. Cradled in the arms of Jona Weinhofen, a vegan musician, Foamie played the part of a sheep that had been cut and bloodied during the shearing process.

Predictably, there was outrage: from woolgrowers, who were adamant that practices like that did not happen in their sheds, and from consumers, who were horrified at the cruelty. Then people started to notice that Foamie was a funny shape. Comments about Chernobyl and radiation were made. It seemed that PETA had managed to find a mutant sheep.

There is, of course, an explanation for this. Foamie was fake. And, in telling you about Foamie the Fake Sheep's adventures here, I want to explain how PETA is as fake as the foam prop they used in their anti-wool campaign. PETA sells itself as an animal-rights organisation, but PETA's principal shelter, in Virginia, in the US, between the years 1998 and 2014 killed 86.64 per cent all the cats and dogs that came through its doors. As the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services found during its investigation of the facility, most of those animals were put down within 24 hours and never made available for adoption.

Why, you may ask, is an animal-rights organisation killing the dogs and cats in its shelter? In order to answer this, you need to know that there are two different ways of understanding the relationship between humans and animals. The first is animal welfare, which is almost universal among veterinarians like me.

Animal welfare advocates argue that animals must be treated with consideration, must not be mistreated and, insofar as it is possible, must be kept healthy. A concern for animal welfare also extends to those animals used for purposes of medical research. Indeed, bioscience laboratories often provide some of the best conditions available for animals anywhere in the world. An animal welfare position also accepts that animals can work for human beings and also be their companions; it is wide enough to accommodate a kelpie on a sheep farm, the ponies at a riding school, guide dogs for the blind and your new pet kitten. People who support an animal welfare position believe strongly that, when animal cruelty is discovered—whether by the RSPCA, the police or a private citizen—it must be reported quickly. This is because we want the cruelty to stop.

An animal rights position, by contrast, looks at animals through the same lens as various human rights campaigns have historically looked at people. It argues not only that animals should not be mistreated, but also that they should not be exploited. Inevitably, this leads to a position that advocates the end of animal use by humans. Animal rights activists like PETA want us all to become vegetarians, preferably vegans. Ingrid Newkirk, PETA's President, is up-front about the consequences of holding this view. 'It would be lovely,' she says, 'if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.' PETA's overall goal is 'total animal liberation'. This means the complete abolition of meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey, zoos, aquariums, circuses, wool, leather, fur, silk, hunting, fishing and pet ownership. PETA is also against all medical research that requires the use of animals, including research aimed at curing diseases such as AIDS and cancer. Paradoxically, because PETA thinks animals have rights—among other things, this means animals should not be owned—it becomes easier to run a shelter where most of the animals are killed, not adopted; it is an extension of the old argument that it is better to die free than live as a slave. Indeed, PETA has likened household pets to slaves.

So, back to Foamie the Sheep. After a collective national guffaw at PETA's expense, most responses from the wool industry were civil and reasonable. 'The facts are on our side,' they say. 'We are serious about improving animal welfare.' 'Maybe if we agreed to a little more regulation, PETA would be happy'. And, of course, 'Why don't we just sit down and work things out like nice people?' This will not work. PETA and the other animal rights organisations follow a predictable 'activist pattern'. They start with exposure of an isolated outrage, then follow public outrage with moves to regulate where banning proves impossible. The industry—whether wool, beef, live export, forestry or fisheries—is accused of harming the planet, animal cruelty, destroying the future of our children and being bad corporate citizens. There are threats of a campaign to expose it, focusing on its brand and image or those of its major customers. In the case of the beef industry, attention was directed at McDonalds, major processors and the supermarkets. Industry representatives, unfamiliar with animal rights activism, often passively acquiesce to new regulatory arrangements. They are unaware that the regulations are proposed not with a view to improving the welfare of animals, but to kill the industry in the long term.

PETA are not nice people. They may compromise with Australia's woolgrowers today, but only to give themselves time to begin a fresh attack tomorrow. Hysterical claims are what prompt donations from a gullible public. And the only reason they may leave woolgrowers alone for a time is because they are focusing on another sector such as chickens or pigs. Quite simply, PETA is the enemy of the meat and livestock industries, any sport involving animals and any industry that affects animals in the wild. PETA must not only be defeated; it should be destroyed by any legal means available. I have some thoughts on those means.

When PETA launched its campaign against mulesing a decade ago, Australian Wool Innovation adopted a strategy of appeasement. Millions of dollars were spent promoting alternative means of flystrike control and finding non-surgical alternatives to mulesing. As an agribusiness consultant at the time, I actually had a role in seeking commercial partners for some of those alternatives. In the end, though, it became obvious that AWI had misjudged its members. Mulesing is cheap, effective and, especially compared to flystrike, utterly defensible. Woolgrowers simply refused to give it up. The market for wool from unmulesed sheep—supposedly driven by garment manufacturers and retailers that PETA had intimidated—never developed. In the end it is consumers, not retailers, who make markets. The PETA roar was exposed as the squeak of an impotent mouse.

The animal industries should not forget this lesson. PETA is not invincible; it can be challenged and beaten. There are many ways the fight can occur, and I am sure it will not be limited to one. In the court of public opinion, there are social and mainstream media. In the courts of justice, there are criminal and civil remedies against trespass, incitement, malicious damage, defamation and nuisance. And, of course, there is the court of political opinion, in which politicians, with little knowledge of agriculture and no interest in it or livestock, may find themselves being asked to do something. But, wherever the battle takes place, there should be no appeasement. Any step back will never be regained. The animal industries must stand their ground, fight and not give an inch.

Senate adjourned at 22:14