You're pushing for a better Australian Animal Welfare Strategy
News
Thank you for playing a vital role in making sure that Australia's laws get better and stronger to protect all Australian animals from exploitation.
From crocodiles who are forced to languish in small and barren cages only to be skinned for designer bags, to baby cows castrated and de-horned without pain relief – you are raising your voice for animals as the Government begins a three-year consultation process to renew the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy.
Thanks to your wonderful support, together, we submitted our recommendations to the Government on June 30th, 2024, to end these legalised forms of animal abuse.
Here’s how you’re helping advocate for the protection of animals all over Australia:
The previous Australian Animal Welfare Strategy was updated in 2010 after stakeholder consultation, which ran until mid-2014. It aimed to turn the nation's patchwork of animal welfare laws, which failed both animals and community values, into a coordinated national approach.
Thankfully, now that the review is underway, we have a massive opportunity to ensure that the Government implements national frameworks that prioritise animal welfare. With your support, we are strongly advocating for animal sentience – recognising animals as thinking, feeling individuals – to be one of the Strategy’s core foundational principles.
Here are some of the many legalised forms of animal abuse in Australia that you helped call out in our recommendations to the Government:
Cruel confinement practices
- Confining hens to tiny battery cages where they are unable to stretch their wings
- Confining pregnant mother pigs to cement stalls where they are unable to turn around and unable to express natural behaviours (the United Kingdom and Sweden have already banned this cruel practice, with New Zealand to follow suit by the end of the year)
Mutilation without pain relief
- Cutting off the tails of lambs and piglets, and castrating baby cows and sheep without any pain relief, which is undeniably cruel
- Continuing the painful practice of hot iron branding on cows and causing them unnecessary suffering despite the availability of humane alternatives
- Clipping or removing a piglet’s teeth without any anaesthetic
- Using knives to carve the horns out of a baby calf's skull with zero requirement for anaesthetic.
As this strategy is formed over the next three years, Australian animals will need you to be a strong voice for them.
We will keep you updated on all the urgent actions you can take to help ensure the best possible outcome for animals.
Together, we can make sure the renewed Australian Animal Welfare Strategy recognises animals as sentient beings, not commodities.
Take action
Take action today by signing our petitions and pledging to protect wildlife and farm animals.
Donate to protect animals
Factory farming traps farmed animals in an endless cycle of abuse and cruelty. This tragedy will only worsen as demand for meat grows globally.