Renewing the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Renewing the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Canberra, ACT, 2600

Dear Australian Animal Welfare Strategy Renewal Team,

Thank you for the opportunity to lodge my submission.

Professionally, I am an arts recordings and restorations producer by profession, including
Recordings Producer with Opera Australia for 20 years. In addition, I have been volunteering in the animal advocacy movement for over 40 years, striving to protect all non-human species from human cruelty and alleviate their suffering. I am writing to provide my feedback on the long-awaited and most welcome renewal of the Australian Animal Welfare
Strategy (AAWS).

General comments
1 Australian governments should be setting an ambitious agenda as there is much ground to make up following a decade of inaction since the lapse of the last strategy, scrapped in
2014.

Unfortunately, the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy’s Discussion Paper does not comprehensively address the fundamental systemic issues plaguing Australia’s animal welfare system.
One example is the absence of national coordination and leadership and how it has significantly impacted Australia’s international standing on animal welfare and damaged community confidence in our nation’s animal welfare framework. Most concerningly, the lack of national leadership has denied billions of animals the opportunity of improved standards of welfare.

2 The renewed AAWS: a must recognise animals as sentient beings with intrinsic value, b eliminate existing exemptions and extend fundamental legal protections against cruelty to all sentient animals, including marine life such as fish, crustaceans, cephalods, and those labelled ‘pests’ or unwanted species,

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c remove conflicts of interest by establishing: i Ministers for Animal Welfare ii a National Animal Welfare Commission iii state Animal Welfare Authorities to ensure the interests of animals are upheld under law

3 The proposal to extend the AAWS renewal process to 2027 seems excessively drawn out, and it is concerning that Australia may need to wait another three years before the AAWS is renewed.
I cannot see why the different chapters cannot be developed in parallel, particularly as there may be substantial crossover and common issues. The Australian Government should provide further funding to the renewal process to ensure the new AAWS can be finalised within a shorter timeframe.

Question 1. Does this vision statement reflect everything you feel an
Australian Animal Welfare Strategy should aim to achieve?
The proposed vision lacks any reference to improving and protecting the welfare of animals.
This is what I would consider the most important component of a vision for an animal welfare strategy. The AAWS vision should at the very least include the outcome of improved animal welfare.
The 2008 version of the AAWS had a preferable vision, than the one proposed in the Discussion
Paper, stating: “The welfare of all animals in Australia is promoted and protected by the development and adoption of sound animal welfare standards and practices”.

The previous AAWS (2010-14) laid out goals, objectives, outcomes, benefits, and success indicators, which can form the basis of the renewed strategy.

The development of a renewed AAWS should build on what was previously developed, informed by contemporary science and community expectations. There is no need to start from scratch.

Question 2. Do the proposed streams cover the right priority areas for the strategy?

All the proposed workstreams are critical to the successful execution of the AAWS.

1 The Leadership and Coordination stream should ensure independence from conflicting commercial interests and identify suitable leaders to unify jurisdictions and stakeholders for national cooperation.

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2 The Research and Development stream should be adequately supported by government funding to promote independent research, i.e. free of industry funding.

3 The Standards and Implementation stream should develop a strong, national standard- setting framework with independent governance and effective mechanisms for holding jurisdictions to account on implementation timelines.

4 The International Engagement stream should focus on promoting animal welfare to trade partners, ensuring that Australia’s domestic standards are not compromised by foreign trade agreements.

Question 3. Are there any shared factors affecting animal welfare that cut across all, or multiple, animal groups? For example: Climate change, innovation, workforce retention.
1 Climate change impacts all animals and life on earth. Strategies to mitigate the direct impacts of climate change on animals are crucial for all animal sectors. Animal welfare should also be incorporated into broader societal climate change mitigation and adaption strategies.

The United Nations has identified animal agriculture as ‘one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems’. Methane produced by farm animals is the largest single cause of climate change. Other negative animal agriculture impacts include natural habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, species extinction, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, and soil erosion.

The contribution of farm animals to causing climate change, and the specific measures to mitigate this, is another area that will require consideration of animal welfare implications.

2 Disasters (such as fires and floods - regardless of their cause):
Legislation needs to be established in order to protect animals trapped in intensive farming systems such as hen battery cages and sow stalls, on farms (I received reports that some farmers locked their animals in rather than open the gates for them to escape, in order to collect the insurance), in laboratories, zoos, and sanctuaries, etc.,

Further, appropriate funding, and emergency and medical response provisions for wildlife affected by such disasters.

3 Biosecurity is another key factor that can affect all animals, both in terms of the direct consequences of a biosecurity incursion and the measures employed to prevent and respond to such incursions. Therefore, it is crucial to factor animal welfare into prevention and response strategies through independent and expert animal welfare advice.
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Governments must proactively invest in the necessary technology and infrastructure to enable humane methods of control and avoid the adoption of crude techniques, such as ventilation shutdown, when inevitable incursions take place.

Questions 4 & 5. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing
Australia’s animal welfare system?
It is widely known that many proposals to improve animal welfare standards conflict with industry productivity goals.

Please take a moment to view the video links below - all examples of desperately needed, well overdue animal welfare reforms that would impact productivity and/or increase input costs for industry:

Increasing space allowances, phasing out crates and cages, such as -

Hen battery cages

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And sow stalls

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Reducing extreme growth rates https://www.facebook.com/reel/1028332488867579/?s=fb_shorts_tab&stack_idx=0; https://youtu.be/Itymg4_p6Xw and requiring mandatory pain relief for painful routine surgical procedures, and urgently introducing alternative, non-surgical procedures:

- Mulesing - https://youtu.be/rQTIgDT8wys

- Various, including cutting, dehorning - https://www.facebook.com/AnimalsAustralia/videos/328732788550254/; https://vimeo.com/
445100263
- Animals Australia -https://vimeo.com/445100263
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Dehorning

Disbudding

Clipping piglets teeth (and ear notching, and cutting off their tails)

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This ultimately places agriculture ministers and departments in a position of conflict when they are tasked with making major policy decisions on animal welfare.
It presents a significant barrier to the adoption of stronger animal welfare standards, even when such standards reflect the latest science and are overwhelmingly supported by the community.

This conflict must be openly acknowledged and dealt with by policymakers if Australia is to design appropriate governance models for animal welfare in the future and benefit from the improved standards they produce.

Further, recent research by BehaviourWorks Australia found that over 86% of Australians believe the law should require that all sentient animals are provided with good welfare, and over 80% believed the final say on animal welfare policy decisions should be made by an independent and impartial authority, rather than Departments of Agriculture. Similar concerns were noted in research commissioned by the federal Department of Agriculture in
2018 (Futureye, Australia’s Shifting Mindset on Farm Animal Welfare, 2018).

Questions 6 & 7. What do you think are the biggest opportunities for
Australia’s animal welfare system?

The establishment of a national Animal Welfare Commission, as recommended by the
Productivity Commission in 2016, would greatly benefit Australia’s animal welfare system.
The benefits of such a body were also recognised in the 2022 Review of the Independent
Poultry Welfare Panel, which found that an independent statutory animal welfare authority would:
 have clear independence from political and stakeholder interests
 possess relevant expertise through the appointment of suitably qualified
personnel
 adopt an objective issues prioritisation framework
 undertake or commission research to address identified gaps in knowledge
 track and report on state progress regarding standards implementation
 publicly report on collective state and territory compliance and enforcement
activity
 assist industry and government in avoiding future costs associated with loss of
social licence.

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The Review pointed to existing models of national commissions and authorities that govern matters regulated by the states and territories, including the National Transport
Commission, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, and the Australian Pesticides and
Veterinary Medicines Authority. These models, although costly to establish, can provide greater efficiencies through established processes and in-house expertise.

Question 8. Is there anything else you would like to be considered in the development of the strategy?
Whilst the renewal of the AAWS seeks to create a unified national framework based on scientific research creating standards that impact the lives of billions of animals (and which, under current law, decision-makers don't have to consider), plus evidentiary standards and the expectations of the community, and although the Discussion Paper outlines various challenges within the current framework, it does not adequately address the fundamental systemic issues plaguing Australia's animal welfare system.

Critical among these issues is the need to:

- recognise animals as sentient beings with intrinsic value,

- remove the prevalence of conflicts of interest and lack of transparency and accountability,

- establish independent oversight, and

- remove exemptions in welfare standards, which currently leave countless species unprotected, e.g. Farm animal mutilations (without pain relief), and legal atrocities during transportation and in slaughterhouses, with those responsible for illegal abuse and atrocities subjected to serious criminal consequences:

Transportation

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“She died like this. There was nothing humane about it. Nothing. She was grabbed and thrown in to this transport crate on a Tuesday evening, and was dead on arrival at the slaughterhouse
Wednesday night. She was literally squashed to death from overcrowding in that crate. After 18 months as a layer hen, this is how it ended for her.” – Rescuer report

Slaughter
Conveyor belt slaughter

At many slaughterhouses, birds may be shackled into ankle cuffs on a conveyor belt. They will be left hanging upside down for several minutes — a position which would cause great pain for animals who already suffer from osteoporosis, weak and underdeveloped joints, and broken bones.

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The suspended conveyor line then moves and the birds' heads are dipped into an electrified-water stunning bath. The production line moves on, and the birds have their throats cut open by a spinning blade. They're assigned a few minutes to bleed to death before being plunged into scalding tanks of boiling water which are designed to remove their feathers.

Routinely, terrified animals will swing their heads out of the way of the electrified-bath and the mechanical blade. Others don't fully 'bleed out' in the allotted time. These birds — who aren't dead by the time the conveyor belt they're shackled to reaches the scalding tanks — will be dragged alive into boiling water, as exposed in a shocking investigation by animal protection campaigner and photographer, Tamara Kenneally and revealed on the ABC. - Animals Australia, January 12, 2018

ABC News added a new video: Chickens boiled alive in abattoir. https://www.facebook.com/abcnews.au/videos/10155904739829516/
Article: http://ab.co/2muVbTR

Chicks - Every year in Australia, some 12 million chicks are killed on their first day of life. And these routine mass killings are entirely legal: https://www.facebook.com/official.peta/videos/the-egg-industrys-gruesome-killing-of-male- chicks/724005165839471/; www.bit.ly/2QKpmEu; https://youtu.be/zdvnDHKB7nA

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Calves – View here: www.bit.ly/2Ushwyt -

- Blunt force trauma. Legal and considered humane: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalLiberationORG/videos/533221310785457/

- Slaughterhouses

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Sending vulnerable baby animals to factory-style slaughterhouses can also foster illegal cruelty, like these dairy calves suffered at a Northern Victorian slaughterhouse when they were stabbed, hit and burned.

Pigs – View here: www.bit.ly/2QqYaeI
ABC’s 7.30: 1 of 2 - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-27/pork-industry-carbon-dioxide- stunning-hidden-cameras-730/102094548
2 of 2 - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-26/more-%E2%80%9Cserious-and- disturbing%E2%80%9D-allegations- against/102270208?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=mail&utm_medium=con tent_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web

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NOTE: Further, gassing, electrocution, shooting, multiple stunning – regularly fail, on a daily basis. This results in the pigs still being conscious when they stick them to bleed out, and when they are plunged into the scalding tanks.

Piglets - A worker uses blunt force trauma to euthanise a piglet.

- Full ABC News article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-11/animal-cruelty-bestiality- charge-at- victorianpiggery/103572102?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=mail&utm_medi um=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
ABC’s 7.30 - View here: https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2401H037S00

Use of 1080:
VIDEO: Two dogs dying from 1080 poisoning (Credit: news.com.au) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgTIc3LoKC4

One of dogs that died after consuming 1080 poison. 15/18
- and other cruel methods to remove unwanted animals, savage wildlife culls and commercial wildlife killing, e.g. kangaroos, and hunting.
a. All types of snares and traps

- Native dingoes are shot, trapped, and poisoned.
Image credit: Defend the Wild/Farm Transparency Project

To truly reform and strengthen our approach to animal welfare, these core deficiencies must be addressed, ensuring all animals receive the protection and consideration they deserve, e.g. Humane wildlife management.

I strongly, and respectfully, urge you to consider and adopt my recommendations, along with countless others, proposing a meaningful shift by the Australian Government towards a more sophisticated, cohesive, science-based, ethically sound approach that truly prioritises the wellbeing and protection of all animals in Australia - for the outcome of your deliberations will profoundly affect the lives of billions of animals for decades to come.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my submission. 17/18
Yours faithfully,

Cheryl Forrest-Smith

Video and photo sources:
Farm Transparency Project, Animals Australia, Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals, Edgar’s Mission

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