We Need a Cabinet Office for Animal Welfare
Considering England is a country that adores all animals, it’s surprising that we don’t have a separate Cabinet Office for Animal Welfare. In the UK, the huge collective issues get lumped into other departments like Environment and Rural Affairs.
Yet we have issues with pet welfare, wildlife habitats, vivisection, wildlife crime, endangered species including birds, marine creatures, barnyard friends and more.
What an animal welfare office could do:
- Create stricter laws to protect all species
- Restore council dog wardens
- Save endangered species & prevent wildlife crime
- Ban all factory farming (and ensure more humane slaughter)
- Fund humane medical research (instead of vivisection)
- Remain independent (for instance, the useless and cruel mass badger cull was due to pressure from farming unions, now accepting it didn’t work). There are better ways to prevent bovine TB.
How Australian Greens are leading the way
In England, we have our own Animal Welfare Party, a fringe party that is doing wonderful work to make the world a kinder place for creatures of all kinds. Alas, so far it has not made many inroads.
So let’s pop over the border (actually the other side of the world!) to discover how Australia’s Animal Justice Party is thriving, with three elected MPs and a party that has actually managed to change many laws for creatures over there. It’s obviously doing something that we are not doing here?
We could call for something similar. They want such an office to push for:
- A ban on live animal exports (to the Middle East)
- A ban on greyhound racing (England has around 19 tracks left)
- Phasing-out battery cages and sow stalls
- An end to commercial shooting of kangaroos
- Protecting native wildlife from habitat destruction (our Labour government is killing wildlife by relaxing planning laws on house-building)
- Laws to recognise animals as sentient beings
Fringe parties do make a difference. Neither party is obviously ever going to become a government. But just one or two MPs (or even more importantly perhaps, some local councillors) can make a real difference to regional, national and sometimes even international policies.
The first Party for the Animals (which gained two MPs in The Netherlands) did change some laws in that country, which spurred an international movement.
Achievements of Australia’s Animal Justice Party
- Introduced a Private Member’s Bill to create a Wildlife Rescue Authority in Victoria, and secured millions in funding to upgrade wildlife shelters.
- Passed a Family Violence and Animals motion, so pets in violent homes are removed from abusers to live in safe foster homes (funded by government).
- Banned recreational shooting of wombats (native creatures to Australia) and also locked in budget funding to treat mange (one of the biggest risks to wombats), by applying medical treatment to flaps on their burrows. It has also secured a wombat gate trial (fixing gates to fences to stop them burrowing onto properties where they could be harmed by landowners).
- Passed a motion after a national petition to ban ‘convenience killing’ of shelter animals (after a fostered greyhound was put to sleep by a large shelter, due to anxiety which could easily have been treated).
- Has been instrumental in educating the public on humane medical research benefits (over animal experiments) and protecting children from watching animal abuse footage (and bringing in stronger laws for animal abusers).
- Preventing the creation of a kangaroo slaughterhouse.
- Ended the use of dolphins and whales for ‘entertainment’.
- Obtained mandatory lifeline bans on ‘owning’ animals for serious abusers (who are no longer allowed to work with children).
- Worked with many councils, to ban the sale of fur.
Does this party not make you feel more hopeful? Just imagine if all voters asked whichever party they support to do more to help all species. It’s possible – it’s already been done, as you can read above!
New Zealand’s Animal Welfare Party
New Zealand has joined many other countries, in launching its own animal welfare party. Animal Justice Party has been launched to help create a more compassionate and just society for all animals, through promoting ethical treatment and better legal protection of all species.
From campaigning for humane research to banning animals being exploited for entertainment, the party also wants the government to create a Commissioner for animals, a simple initiative that could do huge amounts of good.
This law is also supported by organisations across New Zealand who work on the frontline of animal welfare, and are sometimes powerless to act, due to inadequacies in the law, in a country known for its higher animal welfare standards than most other countries.
