Thursday, 19 March 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:54): (2437) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Agriculture. Minister, your counterpart in New South Wales the Honourable Tara Moriarty confirmed in August 2024 that the Labor government there would be establishing an independent office of animal welfare. The action I seek is for the government to follow in their footsteps by committing to an independent office in Victoria. The Greens have long called for the establishment of an independent regulatory body for animal welfare to monitor compliance, with full prosecutorial power and standing in relation to animal matters. The New South Wales commitment responds to concerns raised over many years across the country about departments of agriculture being simultaneously responsible for animal welfare policy.

In 2016 an inquiry into the regulation of Australian agriculture that the Productivity Commission undertook stated that there needs to be ‘more independence in the standards development process’. 2017 FOI documents revealed that the New South Wales department of primary industries had organised secret meetings with poultry industry executives during a stakeholder consultation process for national poultry welfare standards. In Victoria animal welfare sits within Agriculture Victoria, whose role is ‘to grow and protect profitable, sustainable farms’, which is an important function but does raise an obvious question: is it appropriate for the same department charged with maximising agricultural profitability to also oversee animal welfare, when those goals, as we have all seen, can clearly conflict? Currently Animal Welfare Victoria sits within Agriculture Victoria and has no statutory independence.

A 2023 survey by BehaviourWorks at Monash Uni found that 80 per cent of Australians believe animal welfare policy should be overseen by an independent and impartial authority. A dedicated animal welfare agency would build trust in government and improve coordination between the many agencies and charities responsible for enforcing animal welfare legislation, and Agriculture Victoria would remain an important part of the policymaking process by providing technical advice on livestock production. It would mean animal welfare decisions are made on the basis of science, evidence and the interests of animals, not the competing priorities of industry portfolios. The Greens support recognising the sentience of animals, but recognising sentience means very little if the system that is designed to protect those animals is not independent. Minister, Victoria should not lag behind New South Wales on this. We need to make sure that sentient animals are protected by independent oversight.