Thursday, 15 May 2025

Animal welfare

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (02:08): (1637) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture, and the action I seek is for her to provide an update on when the new Animal Care and Protection Bill will be introduced into Parliament. In 2016 the Victorian Labor government announced that they would be replacing our state’s broken animal protection laws, which have not been updated since 1986, with a brand new animal care and protection act. Nine long years and multiple rounds of consultation later this bill is yet to see either house of the Parliament. This is despite a government media release, which is still displayed on the Premier’s media centre website, committing that these laws would be in effect by 2019. It is also despite the bill actually existing; it has been written and it is ready to go but continues to languish on the minister’s and the Premier’s desks. Each day that goes by that they fail to honour their commitment to the people and animals of Victoria is another day where animals are condemned to ongoing cruelty and suffering. We have seen case after case where if these laws had been prioritised and in effect the outcome would be far different. This is because the current Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 has some of the lowest penalties of any jurisdiction in the country, and as a legislative instrument it is completely failing animals.

One example is the recent case of starving horses in Mount Eliza, which has been flooding all of our newsfeeds. Despite horses being without food and without water, suffering injuries and outcomes of poor breeding and showing nothing more than skin and bone, authorities have been left with little option but to issue notices to comply. This is because our current laws are designed to only respond when cruelty occurs. It means intervention cannot happen until animals are literally knocking on death’s door and when owners refuse to cooperate.

One of the proposals in the new animal care and protection bill is a legislated duty of care. This will change the scope of our laws to be proactive instead of reactive. A duty of care allows for early intervention when an animal is not having their physical, psychological or social needs met, including food, water, shade, shelter and enrichment. Importantly, it would allow authorities to intervene far sooner than they currently are able to. If we already had a legislated duty of care, as we were meant to by now, these horses would not have deteriorated into the unbearably cruel state of neglect and starvation that they are currently in. Modernised animal protection legislation is vital to empowering authorities to ensure responsible pet ownership and care and to properly penalise cruelty when it does happen. This government commitment is almost a decade old, and we simply cannot waste another moment.