Legally recognising animal sentience and ensuring animals used for human benefit experience lives worth living
Anyone lucky enough to have animals in their life knows well that every individual animal has its own unique personality, fears and interests.
The science on animal sentience has been settled for decades, but NSW’s animal welfare laws are stuck in the past. Until we recognise the basic fact that animals are thinking, feeling beings, we can’t move forward to meet the community’s expectations for how we should treat animals.
From cruelty in intensive factory farming driven by profit at the cost of quality of life, to callous animal experimentation in medical research that continues because alternatives have not been resourced and prioritised, industries that use animals for human benefit continue to needlessly exploit animals, despite community expectations and scientific consensus.
We have a responsibility to the animals we share our planet with. By enshrining the fact of animal sentience in our laws, The Greens will create a foundation to overhaul our animal welfare laws and the practices of industries governed by them.
The Greens will:
- Legally recognise the science of animal sentience in our laws, and extend existing anti-cruelty laws by adding a responsibility to also provide animals with opportunities to experience comfort, interest and pleasure
- Mandate an end to cruel factory farming practices like the use of sow stalls and battery cages that deny animals a life worth living
- Resource the phase out of mulesing and tail docking through a selective breeding program, towards a five-year ban
- Immediately ban cruel practices in animal medical research like forced swim tests, smoking tower tests, and draize eye tests
- Resource the transition away from animal experimentation and towards alternative methods of medical research and testing
TRANSITIONING AWAY FROM MULESING
Mulesing is cruel, outdated and increasingly unnecessary. With the political will, we can rapidly transition away from mulesing and end the practice altogether.
Mulesing does not have to be a reality in the wool industry. With alternative methods of controlling flystrike available and selective breeding of plain-bodied sheep resulting in sheep that are resistant to all forms of flystrike, the cruelty of mulesing is no longer necessary,
The global wool market has already begun transitioning from mulesing, with a significant number of jurisdictions and brands committing to only purchase non-mulesed wool, and New Zealand banning the practice entirely in 2018.
The Greens will phase out mulesing via:
- An immediate requirement for pain relief administered before and immediately following mulesing and tail docking, and ongoing pain relief and wound care in the weeks following.
- Government support for selective breeding of plain-bodied sheep and resourcing to support the wool industry and participating farmers to rapidly initiate selective breeding programs.
- A complete ban on mulesing and tail docking to come into effect after five years.
ENDING ANIMAL SUFFERING IN MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TESTING
Millions of animals are used for experimentation by medical and scientific research industries every year. So much of their suffering can be prevented with investment in oversight and alternatives.
There are a plethora of modern and cost- effective alternatives to animal experimentation which have proven to be effective by clinical professional bodies. With modern science and technology, animal experimentation is so often no longer necessary.
The Greens will end animal suffering in medical and scientific research by:
- Banning the most cruel animal experiments, including forced swim tests, smoking tower tests, draize eye tests, and the poisoning of animals in toxicity and toxicological tests.
- Banning animal dissection in primary and secondary schools.
- Promoting alternatives to animal experimentation in tertiary education settings, including through phased out funding for teaching involving animal dissection and experimentation.
- Increasing independent oversight of animal testing and research, including breeding and homing.
- Funding research and investment in alternative research methods.
- Incentivising research and testing that does not use animals.
HOW THE GREENS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR ANIMALS
In the last parliament, it was the Greens who:
- Led the way in overhauling the legislative framework of animal welfare in this state, by introducing two Bills to:
- Establish an Independent Office of Animal Welfare
- Legally recognise animal sentience and establish a responsibility to provide animals with opportunities to experience comfort, interest and pleasure
- Held the government to account on greyhound racing, by:
- Introducing a Bill to require greyhounds to be tracked from birth to death
- Interrogating the industry in the Parliamentary inquiry into the regulation of greyhound racing
- Stood up for koalas by introducing two Bills to:
- Establish the Great Koala Protected Area
- End logging of koala habitat
- Participated in Parliamentary inquiries into:
- Battery cages for hens
- Koala populations and habitat
- Enforcement of animal cruelty laws
- Kangaroo health and wellbeing
- Puppy farming
- Animal welfare policy
- Use of animals in medical testing