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Law of the land. Animal Welfare is a Significant New Force in AU Legal Circles
Broadcast: 28/08/2011 Reporter: Sean Murphy posted on liveexportshame.com
ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: The Indonesian live export row has focussed national
attention on the rights of farm animals in an unprecedented way. And although
the trade has resumed and Federal Government has declined at this stage to
legislate it out of existence, there's little doubt fundamental questions remain
over the future of the billion-dollar business.
Hardly surprising then that animal welfare has become such a significant new
force in Australian legal circles. From law students through to a former High
Court judge, there is a growing awareness of animal law: the rights, or lack
thereof, for farm animals and the implications for Australian agribusiness, as
Shaun Murphy reports.
SHAUN MURPHY, REPORTER: At the University of Sydney, these law students are
learning about property trust for companion animals. But as part of their
final-year elective, they'll also cover issues directly related to Australian
agriculture.
CELESTE BLACK, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY: We talk about the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals Act and similar acts across the states. We look at free range - so
standards for something to be technically called free range, and just used it as
a bit of a comparison, talk about enforcement issues. We also are going to spend
- because of the amount of interest in the issue, we're also going to spend a
class looking at the live export.
SHAUN MURPHY: There are now nine Australian universities, soon to be 10,
teaching animal law to the nation's future lawyers.
Interest in animal law extends well beyond Australia's university law schools.
It's now a growing field of legal practice, with specialist law firms. There's
even a former High Court judge now acting as patron of an animal rights group.
It's early days yet, but it's going to have major implications for farming.
Peter Stevenson is a lawyer and lobbyist with Compassion in World Farming. He's
been in Australia as a guest of the animal rights group Voiceless. At this
lecture for the Law Society of New South Wales, he's explaining how the law has
been used to drive major reforms in Europe, such as enshrining in law that farm
animals be treated as sentient beings.
PETER STEVENSON, COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING: It underpins EU law in the field
of animal welfare because the actual founding treaty has been amended to
recognise animals as sentient beings, and the treaty goes on to say that the -
when formulating and implementing EU policies on agriculture, that the union and
the member states have to pay full regards to the welfare requirements of
animals.
SHAUN MURPHY: So in practical terms, what changes has it led to or will it lead
to?
PETER STEVENSON: What it's led to is then the specifics of the ban on barren
battery cages, the ban on sow stalls and also the ban on veal crates. So the
fact that animals are recognised as sentient beings in the treaty is the kind of
starting point for all of the kind of changes that are now happening.
SHAUN MURPHY: Here in Australia, farm animals have no such rights. At law,
they are considered the property of their owners. According to one of
Australia's great law reformers, recognising the sentience of farm animals is a
reform which must occur.
MICHAEL KIRBY, FORMER HIGH COURT JUDGE: Animals are sentient beings. They share
with us the experiences of feeling pain, of feeling grief, of feeling isolation.
Many Australians think that meat is something that just comes at the local
supermarket, but you've got to think, you've got - as a conscious being, you've
got to think of where it comes from and what suffering animals have been
occasioned and what we as human beings are obliged to do to reduce that
suffering, even if we continue to eat and use meat.
SHAUN MURPHY: Michael Kirby may have retired from the High Court of Australia,
but he's still arguing the case for law reform. He recently became a patron of
Voiceless and says he no longer eats meat.
MICHAEL KIRBY: In a way I'm just an ordinary Australian who's come upon this
idea rather late in life, but if you speak to young people and particularly
young lawyers, they're very - very hot about this issue. It's an issue they feel
very strongly about. And I believe we're going to see much more about this not
just in law schools, but in the political debates of our country, including on
live export of animals, on traditional killing of animals for religious reasons,
and in that sense we'll simply be following the Europeans on the protection, the
greater protection of animal species.
SHAUN MURPHY: The shocking cruelty inflicted on Australian cattle in
Indonesia exposed by ABC TV's Four Corners program has made animal welfare a hot
national issue.
Political pressure is building on the entire live export industry worth nearly a
billion dollars and with 10,000 jobs at stake.
LYN WHITE, ANIMALS AUSTRALIA: The countries that we export to, the vast
majority have no laws to protect animals from cruelty, and where they do,
they're not enforced. And in many of these countries they are still to even
acknowledge that animals and their welfare matter.
SHAUN MURPHY: And while Parliament last week rejected two bills to end the
trade, its future is now being questioned as never before.
LEE RHIANNON, GREENS ANIMAL WELFARE SPOKESWOMAN: Let's remember that New Zealand
no longer has live exports, live exports have dropped enormously in England from
the 1990s to now. In England, they used to export millions of sheep and cattle;
now no cattle are exported, the sheep from gone from millions down to a few
thousands. So there is a shift around the world that Australia needs to catch up
with. In Australia, it could be a win-win here that we could revitalise many
regional areas by processing the beef in Australia.
SHAUN MURPHY: Processing meat in Australia and creating jobs and wealth in
regional centres is just one policy in an expanded animal welfare agenda for the
Greens. And with more power than ever before in the Federal Parliament, the
Greens' animal welfare portfolio is being taken very seriously by the National
Farmers' Federation.
JOCK LAURIE, NATIONALS FARMERS' FEDERATION: Look, the make-up of Parliament at
the moment is a concern to us, there's no doubt about that. You've got a
minority government, and that four or five people sitting in the middle there
are very influential. You've now got a Senate that's Green-dominated, so if a
piece of legislation goes through that the Senate, with the Greens there, can
support then obviously it's an issue. So there's going to be a lot of work done
on a multitude of issues in relation to agriculture, a lot of work done with the
crossbenchers to get them to understand the implications of any suggested piece
of legislation, just exactly what it could cause the industry, the damage it
could cause the industry, or the damage it could cause food production or food
security in the world.
SHAUN MURPHY: The Greens want to phase out all intensive farming of meat,
dairy and eggs.
LEE RHIANNON: Well, look, I think it is realistic. It's obviously something that
has to happen over time and I'm not about to bring any private members' bills
before the Parliament about this issue because there needs to be obviously
considerable discussions. But what is achievable here and many of the studies
are showing, there can be an increase in productivity, an increase in a
healthier product that the farmers have when stock are managed in a way that is
more natural.
SHAUN MURPHY: The Australian Egg Corporation says a move away from intensive egg
production would drive the cost of eggs up four-fold to about $12 a dozen and
would not produce better animal welfare outcomes.
JAMES KELLAWAY, AUSTRALIAN EGG CORPORATION: What we're concerned about is the
phasing out of any production system that provides animal welfare benefits. The
caged egg production system, for example, provides the benefits of lower
parasitic loads per bird, no soil or manure-borne diseases, certainly reduced
cannibalism, protection from predators, and as a result, lower mortalities. So
if we take a holistic definition of animal welfare, cage systems provide animal
welfare benefits. The one benefit of the cage is debatable, in terms of it
providing, is space, sufficient space for the bird to actually undertake its
natural behaviours.
SHAUN MURPHY: The Australian Egg Corporation says growers have invested in major
welfare improvements and work to a national industry code.
JAMES KELLAWAY: We've invested significantly over the past and will continue to
do so in research and development of the animal husbandry practices that take
place on farm, day in, day out. We also undertake training courses on farm. So
from that perspective, these are tangible on-the-ground practices and
investments that we are making as an industry, with the support of government.
What we don't see is that resource support coming from those animal activists
that may not agree with the type of welfare outcomes being delivered.
SHAUN MURPHY: Australian Pork Limited also argues the best welfare outcomes are
driven by the industry itself, such as its voluntary move to spend more than $50
million phasing out controversial sow stalls by 2017.
ANDREW SPENCER, AUSTRALIAN PORK LTD: It's a very bold and progressive decision
the industry's taken. It still will be seen as to whether it's successful or
not. We want to work with government, the Greens included, to get as much
support as they can give us to make sure that this initiative is a success,
because if it's not a success, there's two things going to happen. One is that
such bold and progressive decisions won't be made any more by livestock
industries. And the other one is that we'll put ourselves out of business, we'll
be importing pork from overseas, it'll come from countries with lower welfare
standards and the net welfare outcome will be completely negative, and that's in
no-one's interest.
SHAUN MURPHY: The Greens say they want any imports to match Australian
standards, a position Australia's livestock producers happily support.
JOCK LAURIE: Well I'm not sure that it's a credible goal, but it's certainly
something that our industry's been arguing for a long time also: that we should
import a product in Australia, it should be produced under the same standards
that product is produced in Australia, and that means environmental standards,
industrial standards, OH&S, water, welfare standards, all of those things.
SHAUN MURPHY: Under World Trade Organisation rules, making demands on standards
of production is seen as a restraint of trade. But in Europe, lawyers acting for
the animal welfare lobby believe this may be challenged under what's known as
Article 20.
PETER STEVENSON: The Article 20 exemptions do allow trade restricting measures
to protect, amongst other things, public morals and animal health, and I think
there's now an increasing recognition that in fact these Article 20 exemptions
may allow the EU and other WTO members to sometimes say that they want their
imports to come from animals that have been reared and slaughtered to standards
equivalent to their own.
SHAUN MURPHY: In Australia, livestock industries are run by a series of national
codes which are overseen by state departments of agriculture or primary
industries. Animal rights groups argue there's an inherent conflict of interest
between welfare and production and that the legal system makes it difficult to
pursue cases of alleged neglect or cruelty.
Voiceless is preparing a complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission over these advertisements, which it believes mislead consumers. It
says meat chickens have never been grown in cages and hormones haven't been used
for nearly 50 years. It alleges the ads imply a standard of production far
different to reality.
Steggles stand by its ads, but Voiceless admits in other cases, it has little
access to legal action.
RUTH HATTEN, VOICELESS LEGAL COUNSEL: It's not enough that you want to right a
wrong. You need to show that you have a personal advantage or disadvantage -
what's known under law as a special interest in the outcome of the case. And I
said, just because you see something like kangaroo culling that a group like
Voiceless might see, "Well that is wrong because it is cruel." That's not
enough. There's got to be that personal advantage or disadvantage.
SHAUN MURPHY: So how can that be reformed?
RUTH HATTEN: There is such a thing in animal law circles, and in other circles
as well, but animals laws refer to it often as "creative lawyering".
SHAUN MURPHY: Creative lawyering has helped activists from Animal
Liberation expose cases of alleged cruelty, such as at this battery egg farm
north of Sydney in 1995. Charges of trespass against its members helped the
group bring its allegations to court. Animal Liberation has since pursued an
aggressive agenda, often caught in trespass charges to make its claims in court.
Now it's considering a case which could have major ramifications for all
livestock industries.
Mulesing and other husbandry practices such as tail docking, castration and
dehorning are exempt from the Cruelty to Animals Act because they're considered
necessary procedures. But the Act says the exemptions only apply where there's
no unnecessary suffering. Animal Liberation contends that animals are subject to
unnecessary suffering when pain relief medication is not used. It's
investigating whether farmers could be charged for not using pain relief.
MARK PEARSON, ANIMAL LIBERATION: So I have just met with Assistant Police
Commissioner for Rural Crime and his legal advisors, and they're looking at the
issue that if for example mulesing was to occur without the use of pain relief,
is the person who did the mules operation exempt and protected by that section?
Because now there is an affordable, easily available substance which will reduce
the suffering of the animal for up to 80 per cent or more, and if that's not
used they are no longer protected. That's the question they're looking at. So
it's going to have implications where I think bodies like AWI and the Australian
Meat and Livestock Association, they have to really represent the interests of
the farmers and seriously look at all of the practices that may have been
routine for many years in Australia that maybe the day will come when they're
going to be under scrutiny again very soon and it may be looked at as possible
breaches of law.
SHAUN MURPHY: The NSW Police say there are no plans to challenge the exemptions,
but they're monitoring developments with new pain relief applications, and where
possible, will promote their use.
Ultimately the court of public opinion, consumer demand, may be the biggest
driver of change on animal welfare, and in that regard, some Australian
retailers are already following Europe's lead.
PETER STEVENSON: It's public opinion that has led to the changes, the reforms in
the law. It's public opinion that is making many big retailers now adopt animal
welfare standards that go beyond the kind of legal requirements. Not just
retailers; McDonald's is the largest food service operator in Europe and over 90
per cent of its eggs are free range across 23 European countries.
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