The AJP Submission to the consultation "AJP Submission to the consultation "Reforming Victoria's Animal Care and Protection Laws" is now available here.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 (Vic) (‘POCTA’) has been in place since 1986. Despite its name, it has not provided an adequate framework to prevent harm to animals.

The new draft animal care and protection laws have taken some positive steps to redress this imbalance, including recognising animal sentience, creating a framework to establish requirements for those who care for animals, and creating a new cruelty offence with higher penalties. However, the draft bill does not go far enough. The draft bill has many exemptions that weaken its ability to adequately acknowledge sentience. Non-human animals not only have the ability to experience pain and pleasure, but to plan for the future, remember the past, form strong social bonds, and enact their own moral code. As a matter of justice and fairness, all species deserve equal consideration under law.

Australia’s reputation for animal welfare is mortifyingly deficient. According to World Animal Protection’s Animal Protection Index, an index that ranks 50 countries around the world according to their animal welfare policy and legislation, Australia scores a “D” for animal welfare. Our laws are speciesist, which means we humans put the interests of all other animal species far beneath our own. Species are then further classified depending on their relationship and interaction with humans. Animals are classified differently and granted different rights, based on how humans use them: for food, clothing, entertainment, companionship or experimentation. Because of this, many animals are still exempt from meaningful legal protection despite improvements in legislative frameworks.

The Animal Justice Party contributed a 14-page submission to this consultation and made 29 recommendations. 

Conclusion: 

It is meaningless to have a bill with exemptions which allow actual gross cruelty to occur, often culminating in the ultimate harm: death. This draft bill protects some animals, but classifies others differently. This constitutes blatant speciesism.

This proposed Animal Care and Protection Bill will only live up to its name if the sentience of all animals which it recognises is acknowledged, and exemptions and exceptions that disallow this recognition are removed. We must stop abusing animals for the sake of profit or convenience.

The wording of the proposed bill must be so robust that the Regulations and Codes of Practice associated with the bill ensure that animals are treated humanely and cannot override its main purpose: animal care and protection. These Regulations and Codes of Practice play a crucial role in promoting and safeguarding animal welfare by setting standards, enforcing compliance and ensuring accountability across all sectors involved with all animals. The Animal Care and Protection Bill must ensure that the Regulations and Codes of Practice have mandatory standards, not optional protocols, and that they fulfil the ethical and moral intentions of the legislation.

The Animal Justice Party recommends that the new animal care and protection laws supersede any other laws which allow the essence of the laws to be disregarded.

You can download and read our full submission below.