Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Animal welfare is one of the issues I've spoken about most often in this place, and it's the one issue that's most consistently generated feedback from the community. No wonder one of the biggest highlights of my parliamentary career will forever be the passage of the legislation to finally set an end date for the cruel live sheep export industry. Good on the Albanese government for delivering that and for also including $42.5 million of transitional industry assistance in this week's budget for the phaseout, which includes funding for onshore processing capacity.

But, sadly, this is a rare bright spot amongst the animal welfare crisis in this country. For instance, there are still puppy mills and kitten factories, those intensive industrial facilities which treat animals as nothing more than breeding machines from which to profit at the expense of their health and welfare. Obviously, these need to be banned. In the racing industries, cruelty remains commonplace. For example, in horseracing, there's the urgent need to ban the steeplechase, which is still legal in Victoria despite its shocking cruelty. The use of the whip, I'd add, is outlawed in some countries and in some jurisdictions in the United States.

I've also been a consistent advocate over many years to finally end greyhound racing. The only way to end the systemic cruelty in that industry is to, in fact, end the industry. To its credit, the Tasmania Liberal government is seeking to progress legislation to that effect, despite the Labor opposition doing everything it can to thwart the ban. Fancy that! The one issue the Tasmania Labor party has decided to differentiate themselves from the Liberal government on is that they'll stand up for unconscionable and unpopular industrial scale animal cruelty. No wonder no-one votes for them anymore.

Meanwhile, on the farm, there are a lot of very decent farmers and animal breeders, but there is simply no conceivable way to justify practices like caged eggs nor so-called free range chickens at 10,000 birds to the hectare, and the continued use of sow stalls and racks is appalling.

A couple of themes run through these matters. Firstly, there is often a fundamental tension between the pursuit of profit and animal welfare. Secondly, self-regulation doesn't work. And finally the worst combination is gambling and animals. One part of the solution is, of course, better animal welfare protections. State and territory governments have shown time and time again that they simply can't be trusted in this space, and, to that end and in closing, I call again for a national independent office for animal welfare.

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