The Australian Alliance for Animals is calling for amendments to the Office of Animal Welfare Bill introduced in Parliament today, warning that ministerial control and weakened expert consultation requirements risk undermining the reform and setting the state back on animal welfare.
The Alliance said the Bill needed to be strengthened to enable the Minns Labor Government to deliver its key election commitment of establishing an Independent Office of Animal Welfare.
Under the proposed legislation, key functions of the office, including reviewing and advising on animal welfare matters, can only be exercised at the written request of the Minister for Agriculture.
Australian Alliance for Animals Policy Director, Dr Jed Goodfellow, said the Bill fails to match the Government\u2019s promise of strengthening animal welfare and creating independent oversight.
\u201cAn independent office of animal welfare that is subject to the control and direction of the very Minister it is supposed to have independence from is nonsensical.\u201d
\u201cIt defeats the entire purpose of the office and doesn\u2019t pass the pub test.\u201d
\u201cAn independent office must be able to examine animal welfare problems without first needing the Minister for Agriculture’s permission,\u201d Dr Goodfellow said.
The Bill also removes the statutory requirement to consult the Animal Welfare Advisory Council, made up of independent experts in animal welfare and veterinary science, on regulations incorporating animal welfare guidelines.
\u201cThe Government says this reform will deliver independent advice, yet it removes an existing requirement to consult its expert animal welfare advisory council.\u201d
\u201cThat weakens a safeguard for expert input when the Government should be strengthening it.\u201d
Dr Goodfellow said amendments should allow the Office to initiate animal welfare reviews independently and preserve a statutory role for expert advisory input.
\u201cProtecting animals is a shared community concern. Nearly 80% of Australians support an independent authority overseeing animal welfare policy.\u201d
\u201cWithout these changes, the Government risks falling short of its promise to establish an independent office.\u201d
\u201cThere is still an opportunity to get this right. We urge the Government to work with Parliament to strengthen the Bill and deliver the independence it promised.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Australian Alliance for Animals is calling for amendments to the Office of Animal Welfare Bill introduced in Parliament today, warning that ministerial control and weakened expert consultation requirements risk undermining the reform and setting the state back on animal welfare.The Alliance said the Bill needed to be strengthened to enable the Minns Labor Government … Continue reading “Minns Government\u2019s new “Independent” Office of Animal Welfare subject to control and direction of Agriculture Minister”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41184,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41183\/revisions\/41184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}