GREENS NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon has launched her party’s bid to ban greyhound racing throughout Australia while sending a warning about the future of live animal exports.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Green’s national campaign kick-started after the NSW government passed controversial legislation to ban the sport which the ACT government also wants to replicate with a deadline of July 1, 2017.
The NSW decision was welcomed by animal rights advocates like Voiceless and Animals Australia that, like the Greens, have also campaigned for a ban on livestock exports from Australia.
That opposition is continually promoted, despite the live trade’s record of improving global animal welfare through decades of ongoing investment in importing countries.
Senator Rhiannon said her party wanted greyhound racing banned throughout Australia but was ambivalent about the fate of livestock production and live animal exports.
“It’s not about shutting down the livestock industry - that’s part of the misinformation that sadly, particularly the Nationals put around,” she said.
“With the livestock industry we can have a win-win.
“It’s very easy to generate more jobs in Australia if you’re processing the livestock in Australia.
“This is where we can have huge jobs’ growth in regional Australia.
“The Greens in fact have a five point plan that we’ve detailed and part of that is jobs’ growth.
“The government would need to put some money into infrastructure – especially in northern Australia in terms of roads and facilities at abattoirs to ensure jobs growth there.”
Senator Rhiannon said when the live export industry started, it was a “jobs’ killer” with tens of thousands of jobs lost, especially across northern Australia.
She said a few pastoralists did a deal with the Nationals to get the industry going and to export livestock overseas “that should be processed here”.
“The growth in the chilled, boxed meat trade is huge but at the moment we’re losing jobs in Australia because people like (Agriculture Minister) Barnaby Joyce continue to just look after the very top end of the pastoralists and not all farmers,” she said.
Senator Rhiannon said “people are inspired by what has happened in NSW” but rejected a suggestion the NSW government’s handling of the ban was poor.
The NSW Nationals have said the greyhound industry was given insufficient opportunity to reform itself, and warned track closures will hurt rural communities and damage industry members who take good care of their animals.
The snap impact of the controversial decision forced rural MPs like the the NSW Nationals Katrina Hodgkinson to cross the floor on last night’s vote, in support of local constituents.
Speaking to the ABC, Ms Hodgkinson said people in her Cootamundra electorate who did not mistreat their greyhounds were angry, depressed and hurt about the decision.
“These people are not criminals and they deeply resent the way in which the advertising campaign that has been funded by the government implies that they are being cruel to their beloved animals,” she said.
But Senator Rhiannon said “you can’t doubt former Justice Michael McHugh’s report” which has been used by the NSW government, to justify the ban.
“Tragically in this industry the level of cruelty horrifies everybody when they speak about it and we’ve realised you can’t reform the industry,” she said.
“That’s something that Michael McHugh identified very thoroughly, that it was beyond reform.
“Clearly (NSW Premier Mike Baird) wouldn’t have taken this decision lightly; that’s a big step for them; and it was because he had a solid foundation that the industry was something that should not be occurring anymore.”
The report from the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Greyhound Racing Industry found “overwhelming” evidence of systemic animal cruelty, including mass greyhound killings and live baiting.
It concluded the NSW greyhound racing industry had fundamental animal welfare issues, integrity and governance failings that can’t be remedied.
The report said of the 97,783 greyhounds bred in the last 12 years, between 48,891 and 68,448 dogs were killed because they were deemed uncompetitive as racing dogs which equated to a “wastage” rate of 50 to 70 per cent.
But use of the term “wastage” has made the livestock sector nervous about the potential over-reach of future government decision-making; especially with animal rights groups pushing extreme political agendas.
Voiceless applauded the NSW Parliament’s vote to ban greyhound racing saying the decision “marks an important step forward for animal protection in Australia”.
Voiceless said gambling and the economic interests of a “small minority” can no longer be used to justify the “obscene treatment” of animals in this ‘sport’.
Animals Australia Campaign Director Lyn White said “the history of social justice is dotted with milestones that mark our ethical progress as a species” and August 24, 2016 “will be remembered as an historic day in the animal protection movement”.
“This is so much more than a Bill to end a cruel sport,” she said of the NSW government’s vote.
“This decision reflects a shift in political consciousness.
“It's irrefutable proof that politicians are not only recognising, but are prepared to act, on the deep compassion and concern in the community about our treatment of animals.”
Asked about “wastage”, Senator Rhiannon said there was a “huge difference in terms of killing animals for sport and for food”.
However, she said more farmers were “certainly improving their methods” to ensure animal cruelty was minimised.
“To make a comparison about wastage in killing animals in sport or for food is way off the mark,” she said.
Senator Rhiannon said only eight countries in the world still practiced greyhound racing “because people have recognised this is such a cruel activity”.
“We can’t call it a sport and it cannot continue,” she said.
“We need to have a national, uniformed end to greyhound racing across the whole country and that’s essential because if we don’t have it, we know that cruelty will be moved from one place to another and that cruelty is extreme.”
The Greens have called for an industry phase-out that ensures all greyhounds are not culled or euthanized in any way.
Senator Rhiannon said that process needed to ensure the dogs were managed to ensure they lived-out cruelty-free lives and that a transition package for the industry’s workers was also needed.
“We need to wind up this industry in a humane and dignified way to ensure that people are not out of pocket because of the change in the industry but particularly to end the terrible cruelty,” she said.
Senator Rhiannon was joined by ACT Greens animal welfare spokesperson Caroline Le Couteur and the party’s ACT MP Shane Rattenbury, at the Parliament House launch.
Mr Rattenbury said the ACT government had also decided to end the greyhound industry and need to follow the NSW government’s move.
“Being an island within NSW it is not sustainable for the ACT to continue with a greyhound industry,” he said.
Mr Rattenbury said the vast majority of the ACT greyhound racing industry’s $1 million per year income was “heavily subsidised”.
“There is nothing sporting about the greyhound industry; it’s simply a cruel and exploitative practice that sees significant injuries to dogs,” he said.
Mr Rattenbury said the McHugh report showed that a significant number of greyhounds were killed, after being deemed not fast enough to race.
He said the ACT government would move with NSW government to end the industry from July 1, 2017 but was currently in caretaker mode and on resumption the Greens and Labor party “will continue with this program”.