Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:08): The wonderful thing about Parliament is petitions, and I respect the fact that Victorians are enabled to conduct petitions and submit them to Parliament, and then when they reach a threshold we debate them. Clearly there is always going to be a wide array of views in this place and potentially an even wider array of views in the public domain. Whilst I note this petition and will speak to it, it is not the Liberals’ or Nationals’ position that we endorse the contents of it. However, we endorse the democracy behind it.
Let me put our position quite clearly: we strongly support animal welfare, and we strongly support tough penalties for those who deliberately inflict abuse, neglect and cruelty on animals. We strongly say that there should be no tolerance of cruelty in the animal world and also in the small child world, in the domestic violence world, and the list could go on.
I am a daughter of a dairy farmer, and I know how hard my father worked for all his working life since he was 14 to make sure his animals were fit, healthy and the least stressed they could be. And it was a feather in his cap, we will say, or a piece of pride, to know that his cell count was one of the best in the state. That means that his cows produced healthy milk and they were healthy, overwhelmingly – not always, of course, and that is where that practical application of animal care comes into it.
Caring for animals is not a political slogan, and this debate should not be framed in the position of supporting animals as opposed to supporting farmers. We need to do and should be doing both, and there should be a hand-in-hand approach. We should have, and we do have now, strong animal welfare protection, and we need to do that while supporting the people that care for animals every day in food and fibre production and in care for our domestic animals. There is nothing more atrocious than having a domestic violence situation where a partner is being held ransom because of a loved companion animal.
But our concern is not with the improving of animal welfare. Our concern is with the rushing of a complex piece of legislation before important questions have been answered. The Victorian Farmers Federation have consistently raised concerns about the broad regulatory powers, uncertainty around the future licensing arrangement and the potential impact on legitimate farming practices. These concerns should not be dismissed. The VFF represents hardworking Victorian farmers, and there are more that sit under the VFF umbrella. They are asking for certainty, clarity, proper consultation and significant reforms, rather than just a draft bill before this house.
We want to see practical reform, we want to see evidence-based reform, we want things to be informed by science and veterinary expertise and we want real-world farming expertise to be included in it. Good policy is developed with industry, and in this case farmers and primary producers, not imposed upon them, and given the impact of excessive regulation on Victoria’s agricultural industries, any reforms, as I have said, must be practical, must be proportionate and must be evidence based. We should target cruelty, but we should not create uncertainty. If laws need strengthening, then strengthen them. If penalties are inadequate, then increase them. Truly what this government has done over its time is reduce Agriculture Victoria to a back room or an outhouse. It has whittled down both the enforcement powers within them and their resources to actually go out and do that proper work in relation to care and animal husbandry, we could say.
We will always support sensible measures that improve animal welfare. But this is a draft bill, and in my view we need to get it right. There needs to be more consultation. Rushing it through and calling it protection is a fallacy, and therefore whilst we appreciate the democracy within the petition, we do not appreciate a rushed draft bill.