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Paw Regulation: Animal Law in Australia
What area(s) of law does this episode consider? | Tess and Rishika talk about the emerging area of animal law and recent developments in this area. |
Why is this topic relevant? | In 2020 the RSPCA reported that there are over 29 million pets in Australia with at least one pet in over 61% of households, giving Australia one of the highest pet ownership rates in the world. However, our attachment to, and concern for the welfare of, the animals we share our homes with, does not necessarily extend to those animals outside our homes and families. In recent years, the general public has certainly become more aware of the often cruel practices surrounding the treatment of animals, such as the battery farming of chickens, mulesing of sheep, live cattle and sheep exports, puppy farms, horse and greyhound racing and all manner of animal testing. Increased public awareness, thanks to the RSPCA, Netflix documentaries and media exposes means that animal rights are often considered in the context of law reform. |
What legislation is considered in this episode?
| Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW)
Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Act 2019 (Cth)
Stronger Communities Legislation Amendment (Domestic Violence) Bill 2020 (NSW) – proposes to amend the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW) with the following animal law related changes:
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What cases are considered in this episode? | ACCC v Snowdale Holdings Pty Ltd (No 2) [2017] FCA 834
Australian Conservation Fund v Commonwealth (1980) 146 CLR 493
Animal Liberation Ltd v Department of Environment & Conservation [2007] NSWSC 221
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What are the main points? |
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What are the practical takeaways? |
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Show notes | Non-human Rights Project client summary of ‘Tommy’ Gary L. Francione’s 1996 article ‘Animals as Property’ ‘Dominion’ – a documentary on animal agricultural practices in Australia ACCC v Snowdale Holdings Pty Ltd (No 2) [2017] FCA 834 Animal Liberation Ltd v Department of Environment & Conservation [2007] NSWSC 221 |
David Turner:
1:00 | Hello and welcome to Hearsay, a podcast about Australian laws and lawyers for the Australian legal profession, my name is David Turner. As always, this podcast is proudly supported by Assured Legal Solutions, a boutique commercial law firm making complex simple. In 2020 the RSPCA reported that there are over 29 million pets in Australia – that’s more pets than there are people, and a pet in 61% of Australian households meaning that we have one of the highest pet ownership rates in the world. Although we may all love and protect our cuddly companions, how does the law protect them? Animal law in Australia is still developing and emerging. Historically, animal law has arisen out of the regulation of primary industries and that history sits in tension with modern law reform efforts that aim to improve animal welfare. Legislation relating to animals in both domestic and commercial settings currently operates under an animal welfare approach that seeks to minimise ‘unnecessary harm’ caused to animals. However, the protections afforded under animal welfare legislation such as the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW), vary depending on the species of the animal and the context of its relationship to humans. For example, farmed animals are not granted the same protections that companion animals are. Joining me today on Hearsay to discuss the current state and the future of animal law is Tess Vickery, policy advisor to the Honourable Emma Hurst in the Parliament of New South Wales and Rishika Pai, solicitor at the Women’s Legal Service of New South Wales. Tess and Rishika, thanks so much for joining me today on Hearsay. |
Tess Vickery: | Thanks so much |
Rishika Pai: | Thank you. |
DT: 2:00 | Now let’s start with how both of you became involved in animal law because it is an emerging area really a sort of nascent area I suppose, Rishika you started your career in family law and Tess you started in commercial litigation, so both very different areas. What drew you to animal law and why do you think it’s important today? |
RP:
3:00 | Yeah so I’ve worked as a family lawyer for just over six years in private practise and recently moved to the community legal sector working for Women’s Legal Service NSW so I still advise primarily on family law but also now advise clients on other legal issues such as apprehended domestic violence orders, sexual assault and domestic violence. So I was drawn to animal law a few years ago when I started to change my lifestyle to not include animal products. And became more and more aware of the impact of my life decisions on the welfare of animals. And then I just became quite passionate about animal welfare issues so I thought why not use my legal skills to try to better the lives of animals. So as I said I became quite aware of the issues in the animal welfare space and being a lawyer I heard about the New South Wales young lawyers animal law committee. So I threw myself into that committee, got involved in a few projects, and then sometime after that I think you know maybe a few months I was appointed the policy’s submissions coordinator for the committee. So I was doing that for about two years and that involved coordinating submissions on behalf of the committee in response to government inquiries like the ones Tess will talk about, and consultations such as in relation to things like battery cages or caged eggs Greyhound racing animals in circuses. |
DT:
| That’s a great organisation and it’s great to hear that you’re still doing that fantastic policy work. As a former president of young lawyers, I can attest to the quality of the law reform work that the animal law committee does. And I imagine in your family law experience you’ve also seen how pets and companion animals can become involved in some of those domestic and family violence issues, which we’ll talk a bit more about later. Tess tell me a bit more about your intro to animal law. |
TV: 4:00
5:00 | Yeah so my introduction to animal issues really started with the law unlike Rishika who sort of changed her diet first. I really found animal activism through the law. So I was really lucky enough that I was studying at Macquarie University and they offered the subject animal law for the first time taught by Jed Goodfellow who’s an amazing animal advocate, I think he’s now senior policy officer at the RSPCA. And the subject has really honestly changed the course of my life. Having gone into University really passionate about social justice I always thought that that was sort of the path that I was on, I really wanted to use my law degree to help people, but when I took this class what I realised there was this whole other category of individuals that really need legal representation – that’s animals. I grew up as an animal lover, you know I really liked my two cats I had growing up, but this just made me realise that there’s a whole other range of animals in our society that are actually being fairly poorly treated and that the law really overlooks and doesn’t provide as much protection to as I think most people would think. And as I said it had a huge impact on me, I ended up going vegetarian overnight, later vegan. But of course when I graduated as we’ll maybe talk about it later, there aren’t a huge amount of jobs in animal law. So like a lot of people I ended up going down the commercial law track for a few years and I worked in class actions at Maurice Blackburn for a few years which I really enjoyed doing, but I did always feel that pull back to animal law and using my law degree to help. So that’s why I think it’s in 2018 I decided to move to the United States and get my Masters of animal law in Portland, Oregon in a really amazing programme at Lewis and Clark law school. And so that was an amazing journey, but when I came back I was looking for a job and I was lucky enough to end up with Emma Hurst in the Animal Justice Party which is a really cool place to be if you’re trying to improve laws for animals. |
DT:
6:00 | Absolutely. You’ve both come from such diverse backgrounds but have found an interest in animal law and you know I’ve had an interest in animal law for sometime myself in my own practise and from my observation I think as you become interested in the topic you realise how often it touches upon many different areas of legal practise because animals are involved in many different parts of our lives. If I think of one example from my practise I remember even a securities enforcement matter, a bank taking possession of a farm that had horses on it, and the responsibility for the welfare of those horses whether it sat with the owner of the property, the owner of the horses, or the person in possession of the paddock in which they were residing. Do you find, Rishika especially given that you practise in a few different areas family law, some other areas that you mentioned earlier, that the role of animals in human lives so that seems to keep coming back? |
RP: | Yeah so certainly in family law and just in general animals are considered as property so if I were to assist a couple whose relationship has broken down there’s obviously the parenting aspect of it and the property aspect of it. And if a court was to decide who the pet, for example, was to spend time with, it would actually form a part of the property settlement. So a dog or a cat would be included in the property aspect of that couple’s settlement. So as an asset essentially, which is sort of difficult to reconcile when you know most people would consider their pet as a loving companion and not a piece of property. |
DT: | It’s part of the family. |
RP: 7:00
8:00 | Yeah that’s right. So it’s interesting. TIP: Humanity’s relationship with animals and consequently the conceptualisation of animals as ’property’ has existed since ancient times and it has societal, religious and cultural roots. However classifying animals as property presents legal and philosophical issues because: 1) they are sentient beings that can feel pain and pleasure, and 2) our human relationships with certain species of animals and in certain contexts affects how we regard their wellbeing. Now some say that animals should be regarded as property because of their various cognitive inabilities that distinguish them from humans, such as self-awareness. However, there are also humans that don’t possess the cognitive abilities of a fully capable adult such as very small children or the cognitively impaired, yet their moral status isn’t affected by their ability to say, be self-aware, or speak, or have and observe moral responsibilities towards others. The term ‘moral status’ here is being used to refer to the right to not be killed or to suffer harm. As Australian moral philosopher Peter Singer has summarised: “The catch is that any such characteristic that is possessed by all human beings will not be possessed only by human beings. For example, all human beings, but not only human beings, are capable of feeling pain; and while only human beings are capable of solving complex mathematical problems, not all human beings can do this.” A key explanation for why we afford all humans moral status, even those that are incapacitated, and no moral status to non-human animals, even those that have capacities that are similar to those of some humans, relates to the innate ‘specialness’ of the human animal compared to other animals, which animal rights scholars refer to as ‘speciescism’ and that’s what I’m about to ask Tess and Rishika about now. |
DT: | Now you both recently appeared on a joint episode of Bench TV to discuss animal cruelty and speciesism. Now for someone who’s never heard that latter term before, speciesism, can you explain a bit about what that is? |
TV: 9:00
10:00 | Yeah so I’m happy to talk a bit about that. So speciesism is a term made famous by Peter Singer who’s the author of Animal Liberation, a really influential book in the animal rights movement. And he defined speciesism as a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species. So Peter Singer argued that the way we treat animals, so the way we use them for food, and for clothing, for entertainment is based on a morally unjustifiable form of discrimination which he called speciesism. So basically saying that the way we treat animals different from humans, the only justification for it can really be the fact that they’re a different species. And so the example is you know action that would cause equal harm to an animal and equal harm to a human is sometimes criminalised under our law but perfectly legal when done to an animal. So the example could be in the case of murder. So if a human kills another human it’s considered a crime, you’d be appropriately punished for it. While if someone was to cause harm to an animal such as a pig which is proven to be a highly intelligent animal with a very similar ability to feel pleasure or pain as a human, that would likely attract no legal consequences, in fact is a thing that happens you know many times a day, perfectly normal part of our food system right now in Australia and around the world. So, that’s what Peter Singer is really getting at when we talk about speciesism – the idea that animals are treated worse than humans for reasons that aren’t really morally justifiable. And we see that not only in the difference between the way the law treats humans and animals, but also in the way that the law treats different types of animals. So as you mentioned in your introduction, companion animals like cats and dogs that we share in our homes are really beloved, they end up having much better protection and much better treatment in our society than animals that we have lower regard to or are less publicly visible like farmed animals who are routinely killed for food. |
DT: | I suppose there’s a kind of cognitive dissonance between the treatment of animals that are very close to our hearts, that are in our homes, that we see everyday, and animals that we have kind of a… |
TV: 11:00
| Yeah totally. Like people would view you know something like cats milk as disgusting whereas don’t realise that having milk from a cow shouldn’t really be any different. So, and also like you said you know different species of animals, so for example small animals seem to be somewhat discriminated against and there seems to be a psychological disposition to care less about small animals. So for example many people might see a horse is more deserving of consideration than for example a small animal like a mouse. |
DT: | Now Tess, you’re obviously a policy advisor to the Honourable Emma Hurst from the Animal Justice Party, and in that role can you tell me a bit about some of the recent policies issues that you’ve helped to advise on? |
TV:
12:00 | Yeah absolutely. So I’ve been in the role with Emma for I think for about a year and a half now and as I said it’s a really great role to be in for anyone who’s interested in proving laws for animals, because you know in so many legal roles we’re at the other end, we’re interpreting the law, we’re trying to apply the law to use it to the benefit of our clients, but we’re really lucky in the NSW parliament we’re on the front line of creating legislation. And as you said so many different areas that you don’t necessarily think about can impact on animals. I think people when they think of animal law they sometimes just think of animal cruelty laws which is, you know, obviously a big part of animal law but animals come in all aspects whether it’s environmental laws, consumer laws, laws about wild animals, in the end of the day has some… |
DT: | Consumer law in relation to free-range egg labelling was a significant topic of law reform recently. |
TV:
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18:00 | Yeah and I’ve done some work with the Animal Law Institute who runs some really great consumer law cases about dogs. So people who buy dogs from a dodgy breeder or from a puppy farmer then they get the dog home, the dog often becomes sick very quickly and because under the consumer law animals are considered a good, like property as Rishika was saying, you’ve got all the same rights under consumer law in respect to an animal as you would with a faulty washing machine which is bizarre, but can actually be used for the animal’s benefit sometimes because then you can go back to the person you bought it from and say this good isn’t of acceptable quality. So you can sometimes use that as an avenue to get vet fees and things like that paid for where someone’s unfortunately bought a sick animal. But so going back to my work with Emma, we’re really working on a whole gamut of animal issues, you know Animal Justice Party has only been around for about 10 years but we’re lucky to have two MPs in New South Wales parliament really just trying to raise the profile of animal issues. So one of the big things we’re doing is a lot of inquiries, so we’ve had an inquiry on the issue of battery cages for hens which unfortunately is still used all around Australia. We’ve had inquiries into use of animals in circuses and into our animal cruelty laws generally. But one of the major things that I’m really proud that we worked on actually ties in with what Rishika was talking about is to do with animals and domestic violence which obviously ties in with family law very closely. So it’s an area that I think a lot of people at first glance would think ‘what do they have to do with each other,’ but actually there’s a really strong link between people who cause violence to animals and violence to humans. And I’m sure everyone’s heard the old stories of you know serial killers who start off by killing animals but there’s actually a lot of research to back up that link and particularly when it comes to domestic violence. So there’s been studies done in Australia that show that up to 50% of women who leave violent relationships also report their animals were harmed. Overseas sometimes it’s about 70%, and interestingly it’s also a reason that a lot of people stay in violent relationships. So you think you’re trying to leave a violent relationship you’ve got three dogs but where am I going to go with these three dogs? And possibly with kids. You know, how am I going to manage that? Or even worse imagine you’ve got large animals, you’ve got horses, what are you going to do? How are you going to leave? So it’s actually a really big reason why people, particularly women, stay in relationships and stay in these violent situations for longer. I think partly that’s because of a lack of housing options, I mean most shelters and refuges and crisis accommodation, don’t let you bring animals with you, but it also comes back to what Rishika was saying with the animals being property because when you go to get say an apprehended domestic violence order when you’re leaving a violent relationship, you can get protection for your children, but what do you do about your animals? Well technically they probably fall under the property aspect of an ADVO because they are considered property, but there’s no special protection. And if there’s a dispute about who owns the animal, then that just becomes a whole big thing, you might have to end up in family court or civil court basically trying to prove who owns the animal, which as I’m sure you both understand when you’re in a relationship you’re often aren’t very clear about exactly who owns an animal you know when you buy animal as a couple. So then it comes down to OK well the court’s got to figure out who has the better claim of ownership like anything else. So you know who paid for the vet bills, who paid for the dog, who’s on the registration. So, and that becomes even more problematic in a domestic violence situation because of course the perpetrator often takes control of finances as a form of coercive control. So you know, it just becomes a whole nightmare of a situation and can be a reason that people go back to those relationships. So Emma who I work for being a former psychologist was really aware of all these issues and said it was something she really wanted to make a focus of our work. So we’ve been working really closely with the Attorney General to try and make some improvements in this area and they finally came to fruition last year with the Stronger Communities legislation amendment which basically made three big changes to our domestic violence legislation in New South Wales. So firstly, it recognised the link between domestic violence and animal abuse in the objects of the Act, which is a small symbolic thing but I think starts to show that people are listening to this issue and actually taking it seriously. It expanded the definition of intimidation to include conduct that would create a reasonable apprehension of harm against an animal. So making sure that threats to animals is actually considered a form of intimidation which it clearly is. And also amending the mandatory property order on ADVOs so that animals are specifically listed. So they’re still being treated as property, and we’ve got a long way to go in in changing that but at least animals now are specifically listed on ADVOs so people are aware that they provided some protection under the ADVOs and sort of raising awareness for all parties that sort of part of the equation there. TIP: Tess is referring here to changes in the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW). In particular:
In the second reading speech for the Stronger Communities Legislation Amendment (Domestic Violence) Bill, the Honorable Emma Hurst highlighted the significance of the legislation in relation to animal rights, quoting “in drawing attention to the fact that animals are living, sentient beings who deserve a special level of protection. The fact that animals are considered property under the law is an anomaly. Nobody considers their cat or dog as a piece of property, nothing more than a table or chair. They are members of the family. For those leaving violence, animals are often described as their reason for living or their primary source of support….when making an ADVO application, police and survivors do not even realise that a property order would extend to animals, with the result that available protections are not utilised because animals are not considered property to the general public.” Now this is a key statement identifying the gap between the public perception of one’s relationship to animals compared with the legislative reality of their diminished legal status as property. We’ll leave a link to the full second reading speech for the Act in the episode’s show notes. |
DT: | Rishika you work in the domestic and family violence, space how do you see these amendments playing out in practise? |
RP:
19:00 | I think they would be incredible amendments to have. I’ve worked for women’s legal service only for a few months and as far as I know so far, that’s not really given a lot of consideration in the domestic violence space as far as I’m aware. I’ve never seen it on an AVO document or anything like that. It is taken into account in the family law space in terms of kicking an animal or hurting an animal is a form of family violence under the Family Law Act, but certainly in the domestic violence and AVO space I haven’t seen it recognised as much as I think it should be. So the work that Tess and Emma are doing with the Animal Justice Party sounds to be very invaluable and I look forward to seeing the outcome of that inquiry. Sounds really great. |
DT:
| Staying on policy issues for now, as I said in the intro to the episode at the moment and for some time, the regulation of animal welfare certainly in an industrial context is really dealt with by the regulation of primary industries, in New South Wales it’s dealt with by the Department of Primary Industries, and there’s really a set of competing policy interests there, isn’t there? On the one hand animal welfare which is itself and of itself a valid policy interest and on the other hand the competitiveness and efficiency of Australia’s primary industries which is also of itself a valid and important policy interest. How does that tension play out in animal law regulation at the moment and how is that tension kind of resolved? Tess, maybe I’ll start with you. |
TV: 20:00
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23:00 | Yeah so I think unfortunately at the moment it’s generally resolved not in favour of the animals. So to take a step back, animal cruelty law is a state based regulation. So there’s different animal cruelty acts in each state that are the primary instrument by which we regulate the treatment of animals. One notable exception to that is live export because obviously has that export/import relationship but for the most part they’re state based. So each state has a different act, in New South Wales it’s the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. And what each of those acts fundamentally says you know in much more words is that you can’t be cruel to animals, it is a criminal offence to be cruel to animals. Then there’s additional offences about neglect and so on and so forth. So that seems like it should provide protection for all animals but the reality is that in pretty much each state and territory there is a defence or an exemption which says that so long as you comply with an industry code of practise, you will not be found guilty of an animal cruelty offence. And the problem with that is, I mean obviously from a practical perspective I think that makes sense to a lot of people because if we’re going to have a system of animal agriculture there’s going to be things that we do to farmed animals that aren’t done to perhaps companion animals, but part of the bigger problem is that these codes of practise are written primarily by the industry for industry. There’s some level of consultation with other stakeholders, but apparently they’re industry written documents. So that ends up with things being allowed to be done to farmed animals that you would never allow to be done to companion animals. And I think perhaps even the bigger part is that things I don’t think the public are particularly aware are going on. So things like as I mentioned battery cages so that’s where hens are kept in cages so small they can’t even turn around, mulesing where you know the back of a sheep is basically sliced off without any pain relief in order to protect it from getting fly strike. There are things that I think the public doesn’t necessarily support, but allowed to occur through these industry codes of practise. And I think part of the problem is that farmed animals are out of our view, you know, unlike cats and dogs who we see everyday. If your neighbour’s cat or dog was being mistreated you’d probably hear it, you’d see it, you could do something to report it. Farmed animals are outside of our view, they’re in rural and remote areas, they’re, you know, inside sheds, inside slaughterhouses. So there’s a real problem with a lack of transparency there of being able to let people say ‘well this is actually what’s going on.’ And I think that’s where that cognitive dissonance that we were talking about earlier sort of comes in, that how can you connect with these animals and feel sort of an empathy for them if you never see them and every time you see them is on your plate. And that’s sort of just a whole, you know, separation there. TIP: As Tess has said, animal welfare legislation in NSW follows the principle of not causing ‘unnecessary’ harm to an animal. However prominent animal rights law academics, such as Gary Francione, an American legal scholar, have pointed out the philosophical dilemma of agreeing that ‘unnecessary harm’ should not be inflicted upon animals while harm is routinely inflicted on them in contexts that don’t seem to involve any notion of ‘necessity.’ He says that there are many areas of animal exploitation and industry where the end product or service can’t be justified as necessary in itself. For example, minks are routinely killed and their fur is sold worldwide, yet wearing mink fur is not really a ‘necessity’, is it? Francione suggests that the problematic and contradictory nature of the term ‘unnecessary harm’ is perhaps most clearly illustrated in relation to forms of entertainment such as animal circuses, zoos and rodeos where the concept of ‘necessity’ can be difficult to relate. We’ll leave a link to Francione’s article ‘Animals as Property’ in the show notes for more discussion on the legal status of animals and the implications of the term ‘unnecessary harm.’ |
DT:
| One consequence of that interaction between self-regulation or industry codes written by industry and the importation of those into legislation and regulation is something called regulatory capture which Dr Jed Goodfellow wrote about in his PhD. I might just open this up to either of you, Rishika or Tess, tell me a bit about regulatory capture, what does that mean? |
TV: 24:00
| I’m certainly not an expert like Jed is, but my understanding is it’s when you’re closely working with an industry for so long and you sort of become integrated with them in your practise of regulating their conduct you sort of lose a bit of perspective or perhaps become so ingratiated with that industry and their interests that you perhaps lose some level of objectivity or sight of the goal that’s going on there. I think that’s really inherent in the current structure of the Department of Primary Industries in New South Wales and similar departments in other states. And that’s why there’s been a campaign for a long time and it’s supported by a range of political parties, is to have an independent office of animal welfare. So you know the DPI is in such a difficult position where it’s required to promote animal agri businesses but at the same time promote animal welfare and so often those things don’t necessarily coexist. And they’re in a state of conflict and unfortunately you know the people who vote are people, they’re not animals, so they are in this sort of really difficult situation. And Animal Justice Party have been arguing for a long time but as well as the Greens, the Labor Party for an independent office of animal welfare where we can actually have someone who’s sort of more objective who can take on these issues and actually sort of have some power balance with the animal agribusiness industry to sort of, you know, make it a bit more independent and hopefully have some more genuine improvements in animal welfare. |
DT: 25:00 | I suppose even as I said earlier both policy interests are legitimate, improving the efficiency and competitiveness of Australia’s primary industries but I suppose while ever both policy interests are within the purview of one regulator, one of them is always going to have to be sacrificed in favour of the other, particularly if they’re competing. |
TV: | Yeah. |
DT: | You mentioned the proposal for an independent animal welfare office which obviously hasn’t eventuated, but an independent commissioner for animal welfare in live export was introduced in 2019 by the liberal government. Tess, maybe you can tell me a little bit about that development? |
TV:
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27:00 | Live export continues to be a huge issue, as I understand the independent commissioner was appointed and that was seen as a really positive step forward, unfortunately we haven’t seen huge improvements in welfare as a result. Even over the past year we’ve seen you know ships that had to be quarantined due to the coronavirus and then under the new regulations shouldn’t have been allowed to be sent out because it was so hot and the conditions are so difficult for these animals in the heat. But despite that the minister basically gave permission for the ship to go ahead anyway. So I think what we thought might be a really big improvement policy wise there hasn’t shown up to be a huge improvement so far anyway. TIP: In years past there have been numerous live export trade scandals that have impacted trade relations with other nations. For example, in 2003 there was the Cormo Express incident, in which Saudi Arabia rejected a shipment of 57,000 sheep on the basis of a scabby mouth infection, and the Australian government suspended exports to Saudi Arabia as a consequence for two years. In 2006, the live trade to Egypt was suspended after footage was released showing the mistreatment of Australian cattle in a Cairo abattoir. One of the most substantial and economically devastating scandals was in 2011 when the Australian government suspended all live exports to Indonesia, Australia’s largest cattle importer, for six weeks after an ABC Four Corners’ episode broadcasted about animal cruelty in Indonesian abattoirs. In 2019 the government passed the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Bill 2019 (Cth) which established an independent authority responsible for oversight of the Department of Agriculture in its role as the regulator of the Australian live export industry following the Awassi express footage released on Sixty Minutes which depicted thousands of sheep suffering and dying from heat stress on route to the Middle East. |
DT: | And I think perhaps as a consequence of the Commissioner’s mostly monitoring based powers rather than kind of any enforcement power or compulsive power. |
RP:
| So like Tess said, there’s an issue with the public being aware of what happens behind closed doors. So that’s sort of an issue with regulation just to even firstly see whether the laws in place being abided by factory farms and slaughterhouses and also just so the public’s aware of what is happening behind closed doors so they know you know what they’re purchasing and things like that. |
DT: 28:00 | Another issue in, I suppose, the industrial aspects of animal welfare regulation is something called ag-gag laws. Now that term might not be familiar to some of our listeners, Rishika can you tell me a bit about what ag-gag means? |
RP:
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| Yeah sure. So the term ag-gag describes a variety of laws which seek to hinder, or gag in this case, animal protection advocates by limiting or preventing them from recording the operations of commercial agricultural facilities or from making those recordings public. So these ag-gag laws already exist in Australia but they were more recently proposed to both federal and state territory levels. I think it was around last year that things sort of started to heat up, there was an event in Melbourne and that sort of triggered the government looking into tightening these ag-gag laws and introduced a couple of bills in regards to that. So although these laws are often expressed as having general application they predominantly impact on the Australian animal advocates involved in gathering and releasing undercover footage captured in agricultural facilities. And that sort of footage in the past have exposed extreme examples of animal cruelty, neglect and violations of animal protection laws as well as legalised cruelty. So for example the cruel and also illegal practise of live baiting in the Greyhound racing industry was exposed in 2015, you might remember that one David, as a result of undercover investigations by animal protection advocates. And that resulted in the Four Corners episode called ‘Making a Killing’ that year and that did result in Greyhound racing being banned. It was later overturned, but that’s just an example of how these operations can create real change in terms of the law concerning animal welfare. TIP: Let’s talk about the case of greyhound racing for a moment. Some of you might remember that Four Corners episode which aired in February 2015 showing the ‘dark side’ of Australia’s multi-billion dollar greyhound racing industry. And specifically live baiting: an incredibly cruel practice where animals are used as live bait and then usually mauled and killed by the dogs. Now in the months following that Four Corners episode the greyhound racing industry came under severe scrutiny, not just about the practice live baiting but also about the welfare of the greyhounds themselves, and was subject to numerous suspensions and inquiries along with widespread condemnation of the sport. In June 2016, former High Court Justice Michael McHugh delivered his report as the Commissioner of the Inquiry into the Greyhound Racing Industry in NSW, reporting, and I quote, ‘overwhelming evidence of systemic animal cruelty, including mass greyhound killings and live baiting’, concluding that the industry had ‘fundamental animal welfare issues, integrity and governance failings that cannot be remedied.’ Following the report, Mike Baird, the NSW Premier announced that the NSW government was going to ban greyhound racing by 1 July 2017. Unfortunately, in October 2016, facing pressure from industry, Baird changed his position and announced that greyhound racing would not be banned after all. Since then, greyhound racing has remained a focus for animal law reform advocates such as the New South Wales Young Lawyers Animal Law Committee which prepared a submission in response to an inquiry on the NSW legislation last year. Some of the issues raised in that submission concerning animal welfare were that:
In their submission the committee suggested that there needs to be more support for computer-simulated greyhound racing events to incentivise people to move to more ethical practices. The tax for computer-simulated racing is more than double that of physical greyhound racing. The committee expressed the view that the tax should be equalised, if not taxed at a higher rate for physical greyhound racing, to encourage people to no longer support the physical version of the race. And last year, it might have been 2019 actually, there was a Bill that sought to amend the Criminal Code and criminalise people using a carriage service for inciting trespass on agricultural land. And so the Animal Law Committee did a submission, as did various other organisations and stakeholders on that issue sort of saying that Australia’s existing law is adequate in dealing with trespass and incitement. And that bill was sort of brought about by, you might have heard, someone released a map showing where the slaughterhouses and factory farms are in Australia and that’s what brought about that bill. And one of the points we I recall being made in that submission was the imprisonment penalty that was proposed in that bill was about on par with the maximum penalties for acts of animal cruelty in several Australian jurisdictions. So we just didn’t think that it was proportionate to the crime but that bill was ultimately passed. |
DT: | These ag-gag laws are often justified on the basis of bio security reasons or bio security concerns at these animal agriculture locations, aren’t they? |
TV: 33:00
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| Yeah they are, and look obviously there are legitimate biosecurity concerns, but I think when these bills have come in it’s been pretty transparent to a lot of people that you know there’s another motive involved there too and that’s making sure that activists stay out of these locations and unable to capture footage. And look of course the reality is that these things are already illegal, it’s already illegal to trespass on someone’s property. We’ve got the Surveillance Devices Act which prohibits undercover recording in most circumstances so when you see these bills come in like the one Rishika described, we also had one in New South Wales in 2019 called the Right to Farm Bill, which of course people already have the right to farm, that basically is just piling on these penalties specifically in agricultural context it’s very clear what it’s trying to protect. And as Rishika was saying, you know, what is disappointing to me is that a lot of the time the penalties are so much greater than the penalty for actually committing an act of animal cruelty. So, in New South Wales for a standard offence of animal cruelty the maximum penalty is $5,500 or six months’ imprisonment. Now these penalties for trespassing or for using a carriage service to incite trespass are many times that, so it sort of gives you an indication of what the government’s priority is there and that’s coming back to what we’ve been talking about is protecting primary industry unfortunately at the expense of animal welfare sometimes. TIP: The legislative amendment that Tess is talking about here is the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019 (Cth). Under the proposed paragraph 474.46(1)(d), an offender can be charged for recklessly engaging in conduct that encourages trespass, or trespassing themselves, on agricultural land that could cause detriment to a primary production business being carried out on the land. This offence would carry with it a maximum imprisonment of 12 months and a $12,600 fine for individuals. |
DT: | I want to move now to talking about the current state of animal law in Australia and I suppose how Australia’s laws compare to some of our international comparatives. Rishika maybe I’ll start with you, what areas are we doing well in, in terms of animal law? What do you think Australia is leading the pack or at least implementing best practice in the world in terms of animal law? |
RP: 35:00
| Yeah sure. So I mean we’re doing well in terms of companion animals, And another area that perhaps Australia is leading is sort of there’s a growing movement of people who support, you know, positive animal welfare outcomes. I think we’re the third fastest growing vegan market which is great to see and products in supermarkets and events and things are growing every day, that’s something I’ve noticed and I turned vegan at a great time and there was all these options coming out. So I think that’s something really to be proud of as a nation. Don’t know if you have anything to add to that Tess or? |
TV:
36:00 | Yeah I mean look I think the thing that I feel most positive about in terms of this area is that there is a growing movement of people who care about animals, who care about animal law and you know that there’s a growing awareness of what’s going on, you know coming here to talk to you today, there’s the animal law committee, there’s a huge number of animal organisations that are increasingly popping up. So I think you know it’s a hard one to answer because unfortunately I think most people who work in animal law know that the laws for animals just aren’t great. We’re not doing a great job here or overseas really, animals are still really second tier citizens but what’s really positive to see is that you know there’s a growing interest and movement and there are sort of slowly and slowly more sort of incremental reforms coming that hopefully going to make improvements in this space. |
DT:
| I think one area that Australia has done really well in, and this is going back 7 maybe 8 years now, is in the area of free-range egg labelling and the consumer law aspects of that consideration. I think there was a successful prosecution by the ACCC in 2013/14, which held that free-range had a meaning that meant something to consumers even if it was given an industry badge of certification. And if that industry badge didn’t meet the community expectations around free range then it might be misleading and deceptive. Tess, maybe you can tell me a bit about that decision? |
TV:
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39:00 | It was actually a whole series of cases from my understanding so I think there about maybe even eight cases overall that were brought by the ACCC against various free range eggs and free range chicken farmers who were promoting these products that had, you know, really happy pictures of chickens running free in fields on their packaging claiming to be free range or free to roam, but what happened when people actually saw what was happening in these facilities is that animals were not given any real access to the outdoors. They might be crammed in sheds that had a door on it, but you couldn’t actually get out because the hens were so packed in. So what the ACCC did was bring actions against each of these producers alleging that essentially that they had been misleading and deceptive in breach of the consumer law. TIP: One such case in the Federal Court was the decision of ACCC v Snowdale Holdings Pty Ltd (No 2) [2017] FCA 834 where Snowdale was ordered to pay penalties totalling $750,000 for making false or misleading representations that its eggs were ‘free range’. The ACCC Commissioner Mick Keogh commented on the case at the time saying, “consumers pay a higher price for free range eggs, so when a ‘free range’ claim is made, it’s important that consumers are purchasing eggs laid by chickens in free range conditions.” The Court ultimately held that Snowdale’s labelling amounted to misleading and deceptive conduct after finding that most of the hens from Snowdale’s sheds did not go outside due to farming conditions including insufficient numbers of pop holes, that’s how the birds get outside, birds per metre of pop hole, flock size inside the shed and the shed size itself. We will leave a link to this case in our show notes. In most of those cases I believe they ended up resolving with admissions basically from the farmers to basically say yes we did the wrong thing and agreeing on penalties, but there were some as you said that ultimately led to a finding by the court that free range was understood by consumers to mean one thing and what these farmers were delivering was another thing. Unfortunately there has been a little bit of a slide back since that happened so after that occurred, what happened is there was an ACCC standard that was basically introduced to I guess to bring some more clarity about exactly what was meant by free range. But unfortunately that standard was a lot worse than I think people were expecting. The standard generally before was that about 1500 hens per hectare was sort of like the rough standard for free range, but under this new standard you can have 10,000 hens per hectare and still call yourself free range. So unfortunately it’s a little bit disappointing from that angle because I think the court decision was leading us in a much better way, but the good thing is now that under this standard producers do have to put their stocking density on their cartons of eggs. So if you’re shopping you can look around you can see the ones that say 10,000 hectare versus 1500 hens per hectare or even less. So I think that’s a positive that consumers at least have that information out there. |
DT: | Absolutely, it’s certainly something I look for when I’m shopping for eggs, I look for the stocking density and also for listeners brands that offer a free range cam are also a good choice. We’ve talked a little bit about what Australia is doing well or at least advancing in the right direction in, what are some of the areas of animal law where Australia still has some way to go? |
TV: 40:00
41:00 | Yeah so I think for me one of the key areas we really need to improve on is enforcement of animal cruelty laws. So we have a slightly unusual situation when it comes to animal cruelty laws where in addition to New South Wales police the primary enforcers of animal cruelty laws at least in New South Wales are the RSPCA and the Animal Welfare League. And in most other states it’s also the RSPCA. And so that seems like a pretty normal thing, I think we all understand that animals is a specialised area and require this sort of specialised perhaps you know party to be involved, but when you start to think about it’s actually pretty unusual. What other criminal law do we have where a private charity is like given powers under the law to enforce criminal law but at the same time still has to fundraise from the public to actually do that work? It’s actually very unique, and I’m not aware of any other law where that occurs. And so I guess for me and for our work at the Animal Justice Party that’s an ongoing frustration. I think the NSW government only funds 6% of the RSPCA’s costs and the rest that they’re fund raising from the public just to enforce criminal law that you know the government should really be probably enforcing. You know having a private charity in charge leads to resourcing issues. So the RSPCA, Animal Welfare League, they’re doing the best they can, but they’re on limited budgets. I think there’s less than 50 RSPCA animal welfare inspectors across NSW for millions and millions of animals and thousands of thousands of agricultural operations animals in zoos, you know animals in other forms of entertainment, companion animals, this is a huge number of animals that a really small number of inspectors are meant to be responsible for. And I think that causes some of the issues we’ve been talking about today in terms of, you know, transparency and farmed animals. I think I was looking at the statistics and in 2018-2019 the RSPCA only conducted routine inspections on three agricultural operations. So you can understand why people are frustrated and feeling like we don’t really know what’s going on in these facilities because there’s just not the proper resourcing and infrastructure there to actually make sure it is being properly inspected. |
DT: | Rishika, anything you want to add to that? |
RP: 42:00
| No I mean in the submissions we’ve done over the past couple of years this issue keeps coming up time and time again. So there was a consultation on animal cruelty laws in New South Wales where I recall we made some comments about that exact issue. And also there was a Victorian consultation that we commented on and It’s a similar state of affairs in other states. So yeah enforcement is a big issue. Another thing I would point out that we’re not doing so well in is just the simple idea of recognising that animals are sentient beings. So Tess spoke about that earlier, basically acknowledging that animals feel and perceive the world around them. And the ACT is the only state to have recognised animal sentience, and that occurred in late 2019, but just comparing that to other jurisdictions I think the European Union recognised or acknowledged sentience in 1977 so we’re lagging a little bit behind there. And other countries in Europe and states in the US have also recognised it, so I think it’s something we sort of need to play catch up on. |
DT: | I’m glad you mentioned the other jurisdictions as well. Tess you mentioned earlier you completed your Masters in the United States, how do Australia’s laws compare to those in the United States? |
TV: 43:00
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| Yeah so I think overall I’d have to say that they’re pretty similar. You know the United States has a similar structure to us where their animal cruelty laws are state based, but obviously having so many more states and a much bigger population there a lot bigger variation. But overall I guess what I came back from that study is an overwhelming sense of the same problems being here. So you know they similarly have problems with enforcement, they similarly have problems with farmed animals being treated worse than companion animals, but what I think I thought that they were doing really well, is that they’ve got a much more developed and active animal law movement. So we said here the movement’s really growing here in Australia, but in America it’s been around for much longer and they’ve really developed a lot of careful strategies about how they go about advocating for animals. One great organisation there is the Animal Legal Defence Fund which has been around since about the 70s and what they do with a full time staff of lawyers is file cases on behalf of animals trying to improve their status. So they have all this really interesting litigation coming out of the US that I think we just haven’t seen in Australia yet. And that was part of my Masters thesis over there was actually looking into why is there so much more litigation for animals going on in America than Australia? Because obviously we have great talented lawyers here, we have people who care about animals, like why is it not happening? And I think partly it’s just the sort of the different cultures that we have, they obviously have a much more litigious culture there. They also have slightly better standing laws than us, so anyone who works in animal law knows that standing is often a really big issue because when you go before any court you need to be able to prove standing, you need to prove that you have a case or reason to be before a court. And in animal law unless you’re the owner of the animal or you’ve got some relationship to the animal, it can sometimes be difficult to get before a court and say I have standing, I have a right to be here to talk about this animal that you may have never met or have any relationship with. So they have a slightly easier time there in the US. And also they’ve got better cost rules basically for public interest litigation. So obviously here in Australia we have a costs follow the event rule, but in America which something I didn’t realise is that they have their own costs rule, the American costs rule which basically means in almost every case parties bear their own costs. So when I heard that I was like ‘oh I get it now’, because of course like their strategy in the Animals Legal Defence Fund is basically to file and lose, file and lose, file and lose, until you get a win which is so much harder for groups here to do in Australia because it would be file, lose, go bankrupt when you get a costs order. |
DT: | Well I was actually going to ask you about standing which an interesting kind of substantive law issue in animal law, certainly an issue with the shark cull I think in WA a few years back, can you tell me a bit more about that? |
TV:
46:00
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48:00 | So in general terms basically as I said you know you’ve got to have standing to bring a case before a court, as everyone would know. And in most cases standing, you know that we would do in our professional lives, standing is rarely an issue. You know you come before a court, it’s your property, it’s your bankruptcy, it’s your you know whatever, you don’t often bring a case to court where you don’t have that standing established, but with animals it can be a lot harder to prove when you’re dealing with as you say something like a shark cull, or a kangaroo cull or some sort of issue where you as an organisation or you as a person might not have any personal connection to it but you want to protect these animals. So, what the challenge is that basically the courts have held that having a special interest or a special connection or you know the fact that you’re an animal group doing work in that area is not enough to establish standing. You need to have something more. Most of the time you need to basically be able to find someone who has been affected directly by the action, perhaps someone in the local area or something like that, to actually be able to establish standing in general terms. So that is definitely a challenge. And the US they’ve sort of made it a bit easier where if you can sort of prove that someone is even mildly affected by it, you’ve sort of got an in. There’s been a lot of work done particularly US about trying to figure out the best way to have standing for animals and whether we could have some kind of you know guardian system like you do with children you know that the guardian goes to court on behalf of the child that whether there could be some kind of similar system there where people are able to bring cases on behalf of animals. But any of the challenge of who’s the right guardian in each circumstance people are going to have different views about you know the best way to handle things, so it becomes sort of complicated. TIP: One of the key authorities for standing in Australia is the case of Australian Conservation Fund v Commonwealth [1980] HCA 53. In that case ACF, a prominent environmental protection group, brought their case on the basis that they were the peak advocacy body for environmental issues. The Court found at first instance and on appeal that ACF had no standing to commence proceedings, seeking relief in relation to the construction of a resort in Queensland allegedly in non-compliance with the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974 (Cth). The High Court found that to have standing, a person has to demonstrate a ‘special interest.’ Now that doesn’t have to be a legal or a pecuniary interest but has to be more than a ‘mere intellectual or emotional concern.’ With Gibbs J stating at paragraph 20: ‘A person is not interested within the meaning of the rule, unless he is likely to gain some advantage, other than the satisfaction of righting a wrong, upholding a principle or winning a contest, if his actions succeeds or to suffer some disadvantage, other than a sense of grievance or a debt for costs, if his action fails.’ – Australian Conservation Fund v Commonwealth (1980) 146 CLR 493, 531 [20] |
DT: | Yeah absolutely I mean when litigation is brought on behalf of a child, the choice is usually an obvious choice – their parent. It’s a little harder to find a parent as it were to bring that litigation. |
TV: | Yes exactly. |
DT:
| Rishika you mentioned in your work in family law and also in family violence that the treatment of animals as property often affects the way those legal structures respond to animal cruelty for example or animal ownership or determining animal ownership. There are some efforts to kind of re-categorize animals away from a kind of chattel or personal property and into kind of a sui generis other category, almost like a legal person. Tess can you tell me a bit about that idea? |
TV: 49:00
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53:00 | Yeah so as we’ve been talking about throughout this episode, the fact that animals are classified as property under the law causes a huge number of problems because even though we know animals are property under the law we can buy and sell them like like any other piece of property, they’re so different from other forms of property because they’re living, they’re alive, they’re sentient, we have relationships with them, they can feel pain, they can feel pleasure. So in that sense there is quite a growing number of people who think perhaps that the status of animals should be changed from something that is property to something else. And what that something else is sort of differs between who you talk to. Some people have argued that you know that there should be sort of rather than an owner/property relationship there should be sort of a guardianship relationship so that people who have animals in their home sort of re-envisage that relationship is a guardianship relationship where you look after that animal, you have certain rights, but also certain responsibilities that can be enforced if you’re not looking after the animal properly. Or other people have posited the idea of some kind of living property where they would still be regarded as property, but have certain special rights above and beyond a regular piece of property that doesn’t have interests. And then sort of probably the most progressive idea is the idea that animals be treated as legal persons, which sounds a bit bizarre when you first hear it but we do have other sort of organs in society that are treated as legal persons. Corporations are a perfect example where we’ve given an entity legal personhood which is not actually a person but they can operate like a person, they can sue, they can be sued, they can hold certain rights in this special capacity. So people have said ‘well why not animals?’ So there are sort of groups overseas like the Nonhuman Rights Project who are trying to test this theory. And what they’re doing basically is they’re bringing habeas corpus cases on behalf of particular animals. So the sort of animals that are highly intelligent like elephants or chimpanzees and saying that these animals should be released from the conditions they’re currently held in, which are often fairly poor roadside zoos, and released. And obviously as people are aware, habeas corpus action is usually used for a person who’s being held against their will usually in a prison so it’s a really innovative way of trying to basically have this dialogue with the courts about ‘well why wouldn’t an animal in a similar situation be allowed to be considered under this same paradigm’, ‘why aren’t they a person?’ Particularly with really intelligent animals who have you know capacities that exceed many children, they have you know very sensitive personalities. They haven’t had any success yet unfortunately as you can imagine, it’s a pretty radical idea but I think it’s great that work is being done just to sort of put that idea out there and just see where they might go in the future. TIP: The Nonhuman Rights Project is the only civil rights organisation in the United States solely dedicated to securing rights for animals. Their mission is to challenge the “legal thinghood” of animals is demonstrated by their work for their first client, Tommy, a male chimpanzee believed to have been born in the early 1980s who was regrettably found living alone in a cage in a trailer lot in New York. Now Tommy’s owner alleges that Tommy appeared as the character ‘Goliath’ in the 1987 film ‘Project X’, the same film that animal activist and American TV icon Bob Barker and others alleged that the chimpanzees were beaten by trainers. In 2013 the NhRP filed a petition in the New York State Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal remedy traditionally used by persons claiming to be unlawfully detained or imprisoned. In that case, Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Sise held that the court couldn’t agree with the NhRP’s argument to apply New York’s habeas corpus legislation to Tommy, however he nonetheless encouraged the NhRP’s animal rights mission and offered his ongoing extra-judicial support in his comments. The last significant development in the case was in 2018 when the NhRP announced that the legal advocacy organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights (‘CCR’), along with prominent American law professors Laurence Tribe, Justin Marceau and Samuel Wiseman, had submitted a letter of amicus curiae in support of the NhRP’s motion for permission to appeal. In that brief they stated that ‘Tommy’s case presents a novel question of significant importance, both in terms of the legal precedent it will set and as a matter of social justice and public policy.’ Currently, the NhRP is in the process of determining its next steps after a denial of permission to appeal. We’ll leave a link in the show notes to the Non-Human Rights Project’s summary on Tommy’s case where you can access all of the relevant legal documentation. |
DT: | It’s such an interesting concept and one that I think is interesting when considered in light of our connection to companion animals. As we said at the top of the episode there are more companion animals in Australia than there are people which is incredible. I imagine that some listeners might find it a little strange to think of their cat, or dog, or their rabbit, or budgie, as a legal person. To listeners who might be concerned that their cat might sue them for a writ of habeas corpus, can you talk a little bit about how those two concepts sit side by side? The idea of companion animals and legal personhood? |
TV: 54:00
55:00 | Yeah, yeah, so look and I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that animals would ever have the same range of rights as humans. No one’s suggesting that animals have the right to vote or anything like that, but what it’s about really is empowering animals with some rights that are relevant to them. So animals are concerned about freedom of movement, feeling pain, feeling pleasure, so ensuring that those basic rights of animals are protected is really the goal. And so whether that’s through legal personhood or another mechanism that’s really what we’re aiming at here. The problem with keeping animals as mere property is that at the end of the day that they’re really always at the whim of their owner. So it’s difficult for a third party to intervene or to make sure that these animals are properly protected. So let’s say someone has a cat who they’re not being cruel to but perhaps they are not treating it very well. So it’s not at the level that the RSPCA perhaps could intervene or perhaps they don’t have the resources to intervene but they’re not treating them very well. What do we do in that situation? You’re watching a sentient, living being suffering, perhaps you know being kept up all day, never being given any attention or love. What we want at the end of the day I think is some level of protection so that we can ensure that these animals are basically just living better lives and that we can actually protect that. So I think that’s the goal at the end of the day. With legal personhood, I think it’s such an emerging area people are still figuring out what that exactly would look like, but I think that’s sort of the thrust of where people are getting at. |
DT:
| We’ve spoken today about how animal law is an emerging area but an area of law that is emerging in all kinds of areas of legal practise. Certainly Rishika, it touches on a number of your areas of legal practise, but it touches also on criminal law, property law, securities law as I said earlier, all kinds of areas. For our listeners who are interested in animal law and want to learn more about how animal law might affect their practise or want to learn more about what they can do to advance the development of animal law, what can they do to get involved? |
RP: 56:00 | Yeah so as I was talking about before so the New South Wales young lawyers animal law committee is open to law students lawyers within their first five years of practise and law students and lawyers who are under 36 years of age. And we hold meetings monthly and you know non-lawyers as well are welcome to come they just need to let us know and there’s a number of ways to get involved in the committee so we have various guest speakers come and speak at our meetings, so for instance we had Tess come and speak- was it last year now? |
TV: | Yes. |
RP:
57:00 | Yeah. And we have projects that we can involve our members in such as our Handbook about companion animals and we host events such as the animal law conference we held in 2019. We also have working groups to draft policy submissions so drafting and submitting submissions in relation to or in response to animal law related government inquiries which is what I was involved with for the last couple of years. And we also have occasional events such as attending an animal sanctuary or dog shelter, walking dogs, or charity dinners and things like that. So that’s a great way to get involved and that’s how I threw myself into the area without having a lot of background knowledge of animal law. There are now quite a few animal law organisations that people can express interest to volunteer at. A couple of examples are Voiceless based in Sydney and they focus on animal law education, there’s the Animal Defenders office in Canberra and that’s a community legal centre run completely on volunteers. The Animal Law Institute that Tess used to use to volunteer at? |
TV: | Yeah I still volunteer there. |
RP:
58:00 | …Based in Melbourne and that’s again an independent community legal centre. And most recently K&R animal law I think they opened up last year sometime and they provide private animal law related legal services. And I understand that they are looking into PLT placements and things like that. So most of those organisations and legal centres undertake work such as providing advice to animal related organisations, taking people who mistreat animals such as negligent breeders to court and also defending animal activists who have been charged in relation to criminal related matters. The last thing I wanted to talk about was animal law courses so Tess said before that she became aware of animal law first from a subject at University so it’s great to see a number of Australian universities offer animal law courses as part of both undergrad and postgrad study. So in New South Wales there’s UNSW, UTS, Macquarie, ACU and the University of Wollongong among others all offer animal courses. So that’s a great way for students to learn a bit more about the area. |
DT:
| Fantastic well it sounds like there’s a whole lot of further reading and further doing for law students and lawyers alike. Rishika and Tess, thanks so much for joining me today on Hearsay. |
RP: | Thanks so much. |
TV: | Thank you. |
DT:
59:00 | You’ve been listening to Hearsay The Legal Podcast. I’d like to thank my guests today Rishika Pai and Tess Vickery for coming on the show. Now if you want to learn more about the family violence aspects of the law that we discussed today try our episode about invisible needs which includes a discussion about how to recognise financial abuse. But if you want to listen to something a little bit different to this episode, try our episode with Roger Gimblett about how the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner handles disciplinary complaints. If you’re an Australian legal practitioner, you can claim 1 continuing professional development point for listening to this episode. Now as you know, CPD points are self-assessed, but we suggest that this episode constitutes an activity in the substantive law field. If you’ve claimed 5 or more points listening to Hearsay already this CPD year, you might need to access our multimedia content to claim further points from listening to Hearsay. Visit htlp.com.au for more information about claiming and tracking your CPD points on the Hearsay platform. The Hearsay team is Zahra Wilson, Kirti Kumar, Araceli Robledo and me, David Turner. Nicola Cosgrove is the alpha wolf in the Hearsay wolf pack. Hearsay is proudly supported by Assured Legal Solutions, making complex simple. Remember to visit us at htlp.com.au for more episodes, summary papers, infographics, quizzes and more. That’s HTLP for Hearsay The Legal Podcast.com.au. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time. |
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