Page 1222 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 23 March 2010
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The response to this from both governments and industry has been to embrace “animal welfare speak”. Laws and languages are now used carefully to try and justify farming systems which remain inhumane and cruel. As an example, Mr Stanhope’s media release on this bill and the regulation had the heading, “Improving the welfare of caged hens”. In it he said that the new regulations “will allow the ACT to continue to lead the nation”. This is the same kind of language used by the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, for example. It says in a publication:
Concern for bird welfare is backed by government and industry standards which ensure birds are kept comfortable and are treated humanely.
Australian Pork Ltd makes a similar claim. Its website says:
Australian consumers can have every confidence in the animal welfare standards applied by Australian pork farmers. Our farmers all abide by the standards as set out in the Model Code …
But compare these claims with the reality of factory pig farming or factory chicken farming. Animals are not treated humanely. For example, the codes permit permanent indoor confinement of pigs and severe limitations on their ability to carry out normal animal behaviour through the use of devices such as sow stalls. Sow stalls make battery hen cages look almost bearable. In them the sow cannot turn or move. All she can do is lie and be suckled.
The codes permit the permanent confinement of chickens to wire cages with less floor space than an A4 sheet of paper. The codes allow for the docking of piglets’ tails and for the trimming of chickens’ beaks without the administration of any kind of pain relief. This is despite scientific research pointing to the fact that these practices are likely to cause acute and chronic pain.
None of these are made humane just because a primary industry ministerial code permits them. Yet the industry are able to use these codes as a justification. They pretend that the codes serve animal welfare. As the animal protection institute Voiceless has put it, “The law is used to spin the wheels of the factory-farming machine.” What the model animal welfare codes do is institutionalise and entrench factory farming.
It is a furphy to discuss this bill in the context of animal welfare at all. In fact, all of this “animal welfare speak” simply misleads the public. This is clear in the results of a survey conducted through the federal government’s Australian animal welfare strategy. It concluded that people had a shallow understanding of animal welfare issues. Importantly, it also concluded that there appeared to be assumptions by the general public about animal welfare and the existence and enforcement of legislation to protect animals from mistreatment.
So the industry are able to tell the public that their factory farming methods are backed by the government and governments, including this government, sell their legislation as being good for the protection of animal welfare. This is fuelling the problem. The public has an expectation that the government is ensuring the welfare of animals. They trust Mr Stanhope and others when they say they are making legislation that is good for animal welfare.
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