Certain comments from the Minister for Primary Resources regarding animal rights groups have come to my attention.  

NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson states that the work of animal activists in filming animal abuse is “akin to terrorism”.  Ms Hodgkinson's mandate includes the promotion of the welfare of production animals, not to label those who do the job for her as terrorists. Voiceless animals need a window into their world.  Animal rights groups help create windows, they don’t break windows. 

The Hon. Ms Hodgkinson has voiced her support for Ag-Gag laws. Ag-Gag laws (animal group gag laws) seek to prosecute animal rights groups who secretly film animal abuse on factory farms.   There are politicians in NSW voicing their support for the similar laws in Australia.   Without the work of animal rights groups, we would never have known that abused and diseased baby piglets were being blended into slurry and fed to their mothers. 

This is not about being vegetarian or vegan, it is a reflection of our society and how it fails to protect the most vulnerable who are unable to protect themselves.  We in Australia have so much love for animals, so do we really agree that we should be prevented from witnessing the most horrible abuse in modern society because of flimsy arguments and non-transparent lobbying?   

The Australian Pork Limited chief executive Andrew Spencer recently stated that stronger legal protection is needed to protect farmers from activists because "[it] is completely unfair".  Mr Spencer apparently thinks that "vegetarian groups" raid pig farms and misrepresent what goes on in those pig farms through selective film footage.  I can just imagine Mr Spencer being shown footage of animal abuse and then hearing him say, ‘Well, if they had just filmed a few more minutes they'd see how happy that piglet really was after he was body slammed, castrated without anaesthetic, and kicked against a wall.’ 

As far as I can see, there are two main arguments in support of Ag-Gag laws:

The first is the argument that the laws speed up the investigation into abuse by requiring the film to go directly to the police.   However, there are examples of where such laws slow down the investigative process.  But more importantly, film footage and images are an effective outlet for whistle-blowers.  Such people may otherwise risk retaliation if they spoke up using normal channels.  There have been reports of supervisors intimidating such whistle-blowers.  Pig farmers have even offered to pay money to those who can help convict such people.  If such people don’t have access to these means, and are intimidated, they may never speak up.

The second argument is that such footage is economically detrimental to the industry.  I suppose we should just prop up industries which have bad practices with such bad laws just in case they feel the pinch from consumers, just in case consumers find out what they are doing.  Consumers want more information about where their food comes from and so it is likely such laws will harm the industry and its markets.

This is further reason to block such laws – the industry cannot regulate itself sufficiently.  Self-regulation has produced bizarre animal welfare experiments. How many cases of abuse do we need before we accept that factory farming is the number one cause of animal cruelty today and it is misguided to suggest that we need less focus on it.

Most Australians are probably unaware that the pork industry approves piglets less than 15kg and three weeks in age being ‘euthanised’ via blunt trauma to the head with a hammer and then bled out.  But if they are unaware of such accepted practices, imagine what they do not know about unaccepted practices.  So surely we should encourage the revelation of abuse through film and images, not just words.  

Someone who witnesses animal abuse should not be afraid of revealing it.  A prosecutor's first instinct should not be, 'I will keep this shocking footage in my drawer and prosecute you first for revealing this?' We do not need these laws at all, instead we need stronger, animal rights focussed laws.   

If we can get Ms Hodgkinson to step away from her comments and to acknowledge that these laws have no place in NSW, we can move the animal rights debate to more constructive pastures.  Let us not repeat the mistakes of other countries which have introduced these laws.