Questions without notice and ministers statements
Animal welfare
Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (12:00): (351) My question is for the minister representing the Minister for Agriculture in the other place. Minister, it is no secret the animal welfare legislation is under review, but it seems there is a secret activity happening regarding this legislative review. Today’s Weekly Times reports on the government’s secret consultation about the government’s animal welfare reform with a select group of stakeholders that one person present described as a room full of animal welfare ‘activists and their lawyers’. Can the minister advise who sat exactly on this secret working group?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:00): Mr Bourman, I will pass your question on to the Minister for Agriculture for a response.
Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (12:00): I thank the Attorney-General for forwarding that on.
Georgie Purcell interjected.
Jeff BOURMAN: I am kind of asking this on behalf of the Animal Justice Party too, it seems. They got excluded as well. Anyway, Minister, DEECA’s secret animal welfare legislation working group excluded the peak representatives of recreational fishers, recreational hunters and livestock producers, transporters and processors – people who are clearly directly affected by this legislation. No-one I have talked to about this was included in the working group. Can the minister advise why the decision was made to exclude key stakeholders from this process in favour of those animal welfare activists and their lawyers?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:01): I thank Mr Bourman for his question. What I would just add to that is probably just more generic information. Exclusion of people from a working group does not amount to exclusion from involvement in the process. I am unfamiliar with the members that were convened in the group that you have mentioned, but any suggestion that relevant stakeholders would be excluded from a process of policy development is certainly not something that happens under this government. I will allow the agriculture minister to ensure that you get an update on not only the membership of the group you have asked about but perhaps the consultation plan and the way that all groups will have a say in development of this policy.