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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-03-05 Daily Xml
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DAIRY FARMING

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (15:25): I was disturbed to read yesterday an article from New South Wales entitled 'Dairy industry now the target for animal liberation'. It reads in part:

...when Lynda Stoner from Animal Liberation accused dairy farmers of being cruel and of harming the environment she pushed the farming community too far...Dairy farmers have done it tough battling through deregulation and drought, and now the very essence of what they do is under fire. Animal Liberation has come out strongly with an anti-dairy campaign. They cite: health risks from consuming too much dairy, environmental damage from excess water use and increases in greenhouse gas emissions caused by the production of dairy products. While the arguments are strong and numerous they can't deflect the fact that if the demand for dairy was not there, dairy farming would not exist.

After 55 years in dairying, Kangaroo Valley farmer Bob Cochrane is shocked to hear the attack on dairy farmers and feels obliged to stick up for [them]...he is disappointed and frustrated to see people, who are not associated with the land and who don't understand the nurturing that farmers provide for their animals, attacking the dairy industry.

He goes on:

There is a global shortage of dairy products...We care for our animals and the environment—if we didn't it would be very bad management from a business point of view.

At the same time, there has been a press release from the Tasmanian Minister for Primary Industries and Water, David Llewellyn, who has said:

Disturbing footage of dead and suffering chickens that an animal rights activist has claimed she obtained at the Pitts Poultry sheds in Tasmania is at odds with recent official inspections.

He said that food safety, animal welfare, animal health and RSPCA officers have all inspected the Pitts Poultry sheds in recent weeks and found no breaches of animal welfare or food safety regulations. He also said:

In fact, an experienced DPIW vet visited the sheds on Wednesday and found the hens to be in good condition.

I am in no position to either verify or otherwise the condition of hens in sheds in Tasmania, but it seems amazing that there have been five separate inspections which have found nothing, and yet one animal liberationist found all of this evidence.

Other activities which we have seen recently of extremists have been the feeding of bacon to sheep in Victoria—as we all know, meat fed to ruminants is toxic—and the vehement anti-mulesing campaign. Those who support the anti-mulesing campaign, in my view, have never seen a fly-blown sheep, let alone had to treat one.

We all want compassionate and humane handling of animals but I, for one, am sick and tired of all farmers being branded as cruel monsters. I, like the majority of Australians, want to be able to use dairy products, eat eggs and eat meat where the animals concerned have been raised and treated kindly. I very much fear that the extremist animal rights movement has an entirely different agenda.

What that is and who finances it is a matter for conjecture, but if what they are seeking is the release of all animals in captivity and the cessation of the raising of all domestic animals then what we will see is the widespread starvation of the human race and (even more widespread) the starvation of those animals which have been bred generationally in domestic circumstances and which would not survive without the care of human kind.

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