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Secretly recorded video of racing dogs ripping apart live animals, who were being used as bait, has triggered public debate in Australia about a proposed ag-gag law that would have compromised the investigation and possibly prevented the incriminating footage from being taken in the first place.

Greyhound trainers attach live animals to fast-moving lures that the dogs chase while training

Barnaby Joyce, Australia’s notoriously anti-animal, anti-activist Minister of Agriculture, is using media coverage of the live bait scandal as a platform to push for a U.S.-style ag-gag law that would punish those who take the footage: “Why should people be allowed to trespass onto a farm? You cannot decide to take the law into your own hands. Everybody has in their own purview an ethical reason to break into some industry because of what they judge to be correct.” The proposed legislation would also require activists who do acquire footage to quickly turn it over to authorities, which would compromise their investigations.

Australia’s Minister of Agriculture Barnaby Joyce is advocating for ag-gag laws to criminalize undercover investigations that expose animal cruelty and to protect those who commit the abuses

If comments posted online about the live bait exposé are any indication, Australians overwhelmingly disagree with Mr. Joyce:

“Only people like Barnaby could look at video of the most barbaric animal cruelty and seek to punish those who exposed it, not those who perpetrate it.”

“If the regulators don’t protect the animals then SOMEONE has too.”

“Baby pigs being ripped apart while tied to a lure doesn’t seem to upset Joyce, but the people who exposed it do?”

“For too long, the so called regulators have been in bed with cruel industries. So who is going to stop cruelty? The people who always have — the public.”

It isn’t just the dog racing business that Barnaby Joyce is working to protect. Horrific footage from dozens of undercover investigations of Australia’s multi-billion dollar live export industry has demonstrated that transporting millions of cows and sheep to the Middle East and Asia is inherently inhumane. It is this damning footage that Minister Joyce is most eager to suppress.

Each year, millions of live sheep and cattle are exported to the Middle East and Asia

Australia’s proposed ag-gag law would impose fines up to $10,000 and prison sentences up to 20 years, depending on the amount of economic damage. In the U.S., seven states have passed “ag-gag” bills into law since the 1990s.

Please visit Animals Australia to learn more about the organization’s extraordinary investigations that are blowing the lid off of some of the world’s cruelest animal industries.

Don’t be fooled by his childish smile and cheerful name. Barnaby Joyce, Australia’s Minister of Agriculture, is one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

Barnaby Joyce, Australia’s Minister of Agriculture (photo: weeklytimesnow.com.au)

In recent years, Australian animal advocacy groups have released footage from dozens of undercover investigations showing thousands of animals being terrorized by industries regulated by Mr. Joyce. Instead of punishing the culprits, Mr. Joyce uses the news as a PR opportunity to portray Australia as a world leader in the humane treatment of animals. Instead of condemning the crimes, he denounces the advocates who document them. And instead of working to eliminate the abuses, he advocates for “ag gag” laws to prevent them from being exposed.

LIVE EXPORTS

Each year, Australia loads millions of live sheep and cattle onto ships and transports them to countries in the Middle East and Asia that have few, if any, laws governing the humane treatment of animals. Undercover investigations consistently expose atrocities during every leg of the journey. Thousands of animals have died from heat exhaustion and disease on the ships and have been butchered while still alive in their destination countries.

Australian animals meet their fate in the Middle East (photos: Animals Australia)

In spite of abundant evidence demonstrating that live animals cannot be exported humanely, Joyce defends the trade and works to expand it. And he routinely uses Australia’s unenforceable and ineffective animal welfare regulations – the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance Program (ESCAS) – to not only justify his promotion of the live export trade but also portray it as a model for the humane treatment of animals. In January, Joyce stated that a review of ESCAS “demonstrates that Australian livestock exported overseas are treated humanely in almost every instance” and that “only 12,958 animals (0.16%) had experienced a potentially adverse animal welfare outcome since 2011.”

Live sheep from Australia are stuffed into a trunk in Kuwait (photo: Animals Australia)

Adolph Hitler said, “make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it.” This appears to be Joyce’s strategy to convince the world that the millions of animals who are abused and tortured in the live export trade are treated “humanely in almost every instance.”

Barnaby Joyce (photo: 2gb.com)

LIVE ANIMAL BAIT

In mid-February, Animals Australia released footage of greyhounds ripping apart live animals who were being used as bait to train the dogs to run faster. The revelation that dog racers were using rabbits, possums and piglets as “live bait” and the footage itself were so disturbing that the dog racing industry was compelled to publicly condemn the practice and cancel its annual awards ceremony.

Greyhound in training chases live possum being used as bait (photo: AFP)

Instead of denouncing the illegal, pervasive and horrific use of live bait when the news broke, Barnaby Joyce, true to form, criticized the activists for using hidden cameras and reiterated the need for legislation that would outlaw their use. Time and again, Joyce has made his objective clear: fine and imprison those who dare to document crimes against animals while protecting those who commit them.

In an effort to pass harsher laws to keep cameras out of factory farms, agribusinesses in Eastern Australia are claiming that activists pose a threat to “biosecurity” because they can spread disease to their animals. The factory farmers are not only attempting to hide animal abuse from the public, but they are also shifting the blame for disease outbreaks away from overcrowding and intensive confinement on their farms. If the “biosecurity” measure is passed, activists who enter farms illegally could face up to three years in jail or a $1.1 million fine.

https://youtu.be/hHkqrd44dDw

This is not the first attempt by Australian agribusiness to pass American-style “ag gag” laws. In 2012, after several undercover investigations cast a negative spotlight on Australia’s wool and pork industries, a Senator in South Australia introduced the Surveillance Devices bill, which would have criminalized the taking of photos and video of “a legally operating animal enterprise.” It would have also required activists to turn over their videos to authorities within 48 hours. The bill’s sponsor claimed the law would “strengthen genuine animal welfare protections,” as if cameras harm animals. The bill was voted down, re-introduced with changes in July 2014 and voted down again.

In 2013, Australian farmers killed almost 500,000 egg laying hens during an outbreak of avian flu. At the time, no one blamed the outbreak on a cell phone camera.

Agribusiness attempts to shift blame for disease outbreaks from overcrowded barns to activists with cameras

Intensive confinement and overcrowding on factory farms spread diseases. Hidden cameras spread the truth. Criminalizing them will make horrific conditions for animals on factory farms even worse, as agribusiness will have no incentive to minimize abuse.

Hidden cameras hold famers accountable (Photo: PETA)

Factory farmers in Australia and around the world confine, mutilate, abuse and slaughter billions of farm animals each year, but they and the government officials in their pockets would like the public to think that activists with cameras are the criminals. History will be the judge.

U.S. animal rights groups are fighting “ag-gag” bills

For the past several years, Australia and China have been working on an agreement which, when signed, could lead to Australia shipping up to one million live cattle to China each year. The deal is being finalized at a time when local and international opposition to live exports has reached a fever pitch due to the extreme animal abuse exposed in undercover investigations.

TV journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell speaks to Tanya Hardy, a veteran activist in Australia, about the deal with China and the cruelty of live exports.

According to Animals Australia, “Most animals who are exported live for slaughter have their throats cut while fully conscious. Millions have died at sea. Some 30 investigations have revealed that in destination countries, many animals endure routine abuse and brutal slaughter in places where laws do not protect them from cruelty.”  Following is one of many examples of extreme suffering experienced by animals exported from Australia.

https://youtu.be/5K96eQXgVSk?list=UU3RcYC2_7Ias6mO39k1LVLQ

Australia’s live export controversy has not received much media attention in the U.S., but the impending $1 billion deal with China is so substantial that the New York Times wrote a story about it. At the end of the lengthy article, the Times mentions – and virtually dismisses – the humane issues, leading readers to believe that they have been adequately addressed:

“The leader of the exporters’ group, said that all animals exported from Australia were closely tracked and that there were strict regulations about their welfare before export, during shipping and even after they landed in a foreign country. The regulations were tightened after export bans were imposed after accusations of cruelty in some Indonesian slaughterhouses.”

Cattle being loaded onto ship

Send a message to the Australian embassy in your country.

please visit Ban Live Export for more information about Australia’s grisly live export trade and to find other ways you can help.

In defiance of growing public demand to end live exports due to animal cruelty, Australia plans to significantly expand the trade by shipping an estimated one million cattle to China each year. If the $1 billion deal is signed, the number of cattle exported to countries in Asia and the Middle East would double from its current levels.

Andrew Wilkie, one of the few members of the Australian Parliament who publicly opposes live exports, described the new deal with China as a “dreadful development” and that the federal government is “a pack of sadists when it comes to animal welfare.”

Photo: Animals Australia

The agreement with China comes just two weeks after Australian media aired footage of Australian cows and sheep being tortured in several countries where the group Animals Australia stationed undercover investigators. While the damning footage once again angered the Australian public, it did not have the effect of curbing the booming live export industry.

Live export supporters, including the Australian government, insist that the incidents documented in undercover videos are the exception. Opponents, on the other hand, say that abuses are routine and that Australia’s regulations fail to protect the animals in countries that have few, if any, animal protection laws. They also argue that the millions of sheep and cattle exported annually from Australia cannot be tracked to their final destinations within the countries to which they are shipped.

Unloaded from live export ship

Of all of the countries where Australia ships live animals, only one of them has citizens who are attempting to stop it — Israel. Over the past couple of years, Israeli activists have taken undercover footage which has aired on national television, and they have used street theater to educate the public about the cruelty both on the transport ships and within the country after the animals are unloaded.

Photo: ישראל נגד משלוחים חיים (Against Live Transports)

Photo:  Against Live Transports

Send an instant message to the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Visit Animals Australia to take action.

Tourist dollars are vital to Australia’s economy. Until live exports are terminated, boycott Australia.