Transcript of media conference with Tasmanian Greens Leader Rosalie Woodruff, Parliament Lawns, Hobart, 16 April 2024.
Rosalie Woodruff
It’s been six months now since the Farm Transparency Project activists released disturbing distressing footage of terrible suffering and harm that’s been caused to animals in slaughterhouses across Tasmania, five separate slaughterhouses, showing systemic practices of cruelty, animals dying in pain, repeated systematic failures to look after animal welfare.
What we should have heard from a good government is immediate action for an investigation to pause any animal processing in slaughterhouses where there was evidence and to put CCTV cameras in place. That didn’t happen. Instead, Minister Jo Palmer at the time kicked the can down the road and started a report, a process that we didn’t need. That should have been given to Tasmanians on the fifth of March when we went back to Parliament.
Six weeks later, we still don’t know what is the taskforce report. What did they find? We want a comprehensive update on the investigations that have occurred in abattoirs in the last six months, and the changes to the Animal Welfare Act that we need as a result of that. Animals are still dying in slaughterhouses across Tasmania, in pain and suffering, because nothing has changed. And we know that from the evidence that we saw from animal activists, that this is occurring in at least five slaughterhouses across Tasmania.
We’ve got farmers, people in the community and animal activists, all asking questions; nothing’s changed. But they’re asking questions; were should animals be taken to humanely have an end to their life? Humane processing. We don’t know. And the community doesn’t know. We’ve got a new Minister in place with Jane Howlett. Minister Palmer failed to do her job.
It’s an opportunity for Minister Howlett to come out and immediately release the taskforce report, provide a comprehensive update on the actions that have been taken, investigations since November across the slaughterhouses and the changes to the Animal Welfare Act that will be bought in. We don’t need to wait to go back to Parliament. Every day in Tasmania, across Tasmania, animals are dying in pain and suffering. We saw the evidence, no change was taken. We need CCTV footage in place and we need to have an understanding of how the government has acted.
Journalist – Elliott
Do you think that changing the Minister will actually make a real difference in terms of this issue?
Rosalie Woodruff
Well there is an opportunity to see Minister Howlett come in and take action You know, she professes to really care about animal welfare. We want to see the evidence of that. She could come out today and release the taskforce report. It was meant to be tabled in Parliament six weeks ago. And we know that it’s there.
Because, you know, clearly, the government is sitting on bad news. That’s what it feels like. They don’t need to wait for Parliament. The Murrihy Review was released outside of Parliament, Parliament’s just a place. But every day animals are dying in pain and suffering and we expect this Minister Howlett to take action today and release the report.
Tasmanian Times
What did you think the industry itself hasn’t pushed hard on this given that, you know, they’ve got a reputation to protect? Surely they should be supporting moves for more transparency?
Rosalie Woodruff
Well, the industry were out there in the beginning strongly calling for action in this in this on this issue. Tasmanians who saw the footage haven’t forgotten and won’t forget, like the government can’t pretend that people will forget what’s happened and what is happening every single day in Tasmania and abattoirs.
It is terrible for any farmer who cares about their animals to imagine the pain and suffering that will occur to them when they go to an abattoir for their end of life. We can have a different system and a more humane one. Other states do. It’s the opportunity for Minister Howlett to come out and release that report, not wait till we go back to Parliament, and take action today to protect animals.
Journalist – Josh Duggan
So Ben Yole’s been given, and we’ve heard his associates have been given, show cause notices with Tasracing looking to ban them by the end of the week. Is that a strong enough action?
Rosalie Woodruff
That’s very good news for everyone who’s been following the story of the actions that have been taken against that particular greyhound trainer. The evidence was very clear and was represented very strongly. The fact that he was allowed to go back and continue racing has been very distressing for people who love greyhounds. They’re gentle animals.
So, you know, we strongly support actions that will uphold the law and uphold the regulations of racing. Those regulations aren’t strong enough for animal welfare. But what we’ve got – and the actions that have been proposed by Tasracing – should see our greyhounds better protected than they currently are. We need to go much further than that. In Tasmania, our regulations are clearly not good enough. And greyhounds are being trained and raced in in terrible conditions sometimes and there needs to be better enforcement to protect the animals.
Is it disappointing that the government’s own integrity body is just sitting on his hands. And given the foreshadowed changes to make the integrity body part of Tasracing itself, is that potentially positive given that Tasracing are the ones who seem to be taking this seriously?
So it’s obvious by the evidence of the integrity body that they have failed to properly protect greyhounds when we’ve seen evidence of the harms that they’ve suffered from trainers, and from not being properly tracked, and properly re homed into safe conditions. Every single day, activists have shown evidence of greyhounds living in terrible conditions, who have been raced for money and for profit. So this is an industry which is based on profit motive.
We have to have an integrity body which is strong. we will look very closely at incorporating that into Tasracing. We’re very concerned about it being under a Minister. Regardless of Tasracing’s response in this instance, there is no doubt that we haven’t had strong enough responses from Tasracing or the integrity body in the past. Both of those agencies have been not acting to protect animals as they should have done. So we’re not we’re not we’re not confident that incorporating them into Tasracing is going to fix the problem at all.
Journalist – Lucy MacDonald
In terms of Ben Yole racing, obviously it relates to harness racing. You know, Tasracing has been trying really hard to ban this trainer with this massive government-commissioned report with serious allegations against him. Is it concerning that Tasracing has had to work so hard to try and kick this person out of the industry?
Rosalie Woodruff
Yes, it is concerning. It doesn’t make sense to anyone in the community. It doesn’t make sense to many people in the harness racing community, they don’t understand why it’s so hard. Clearly there’s a power issue at play here. There’s clearly, you know, powerful people exerting influence over the situation. It’s been far too hard given the evidence that was provided for this trainer to be stopped from racing. And, you know, it’s reasonable that people ask the question, ‘what’s at fault here?’ Like, what systems do we need to fix so that this doesn’t happen in future or in other instances where there’s evidence of failures of the Animal Welfare Act and racing regulations?
Journalist – Elliott
Do you agree with Kristie Johnson that there needs to be an end to transferring horses or dogs to [inaudible]?
Rosalie Woodruff
Of course we do. The Greens have always said that, we’ve said that when we initiated the greyhound inquiry in Tasmania. On greyhounds, horses, there has to be strong traceability from birth to death of an animal who is at any point in their life involved in the racing industry. It is critical that the whole life, that when they pass from person to person if that happens, that we know exactly who the dog is, exactly the conditions that they’re going into, exactly where they’ve come from. And this is all really clear and transparent.
Tasmanian Times
There’s like a long list of animal issues in Tasmania, from duck hunting to seals in aquaculture to crop protection permits, it just kind of goes on and on. What can be done to improve the overall picture of animal welfare in Tasmania?
Rosalie Woodruff
Well, the Liberal government could listen to the majority of Tasmanians who are appalled at animal welfare conditions in the racing industry, in our slaughterhouses, who are who are sickened at the idea of ducks being shot out of the out of the sky, native ducks. The majority of Tasmania feel that way. The Greens will be representing those people in Parliament, as we’ve always done. We’re speaking on behalf of people who love our native and domestic species, animals which have a right to their own life without living in pain and suffering, and also having a habitat to live in, which is not destroyed and is intact.
Tasmanian Times
What does this say about the effectiveness of our oversight mechanisms that it’s activist sneaking over fences in the middle of the night planting security cameras, that’s the way that we get to know about these things and not through proper and accountable scrutiny processes put in place by government?
Rosalie Woodruff
You’re absolutely right. We campaigned strongly on integrity and this is part of our core job that we’ll do when we go back to Parliament. You know, we’ll wait and see what other members of the crossbench are actually going to do in this space. It’s very clear that the Greens will be leading the charge when it comes to matters of integrity, strengthening our Integrity Commission, making sure that we have proper Right to Information laws so that we can find out the treatment and the actions that are being taken by government agencies to protect animals. And, you know, investigating all of our oversight bodies.
We’ve long said that the EPA for example, because it was, it is still too closely tied to being directed by the Minister, is not capable of taking the strong actions it needs to protect native species. And then we’ve already seen animals aren’t protected, domestic and racing animals are not protected under the Animal Welfare Act properly. So all of our integrity bodies are effectively moribund after 10 years under the Liberals, our job is to go back into Parliament and to push really hard to make changes to legislation to protect them.
Journalist – Elliott
Speaking of integrity actually, Rebecca White’s now the Shadow Minister for integrity, do you welcome that being added as a portfolio for Labor?
Rosalie Woodruff
Well, better late than never. It’s great that you know Labor’s understood at least one of the big messages from this election, which is that people in Tasmania don’t want to have secret deals done and they don’t want to have backroom deals. The point about the Labor shadow portfolios is: what will change in terms of policy issues? The deckchairs can change but is Labor going to change its key positions? Will it uphold the strengthening for poker machines and gambling? Will it stand and vote against a stadium? Will they make sure that there are proper laws to ban conversion practices in Tasmania?
These are critical issues that Tasmanians want to know: is there going to be a change under Dean Winter? Are they going to lurch further to the right? It appears from the shape of some of the actions of Labor over the recent times that that’s what’s happening. They’ve back-flipped on critical issues, particularly donations reform, just late last year. They’ve they’ve not made a strong statement about their stand on the stadium. And we are concerned that they might go soft on banning conversion practices. So we want to have some clear statements. It doesn’t matter where you move the chairs around on the deck if if the captain of the ship, Dean Winter, it’s about whether he’s changing course or not. That’s what matters.
Tasmanian Times
When are Greens going to be announcing your lineup of spokespeople?
Rosalie Woodruff
Shortly. We’re getting close to making that decision and an announcement.
