Greyhound racing, battery hens in Greens’ sights

PET owners could face jail for causing “mental injury, suffering or distress” to animals under a Bill to be ­tabled by the Greens in State Parliament this week.

New call to ban battery-hen farming, state's cage egg producers angered by the fresh call, Tasmanian Commercial Egg Producers president John Groeneweld, of Groeneweld Poultry, at Moriarty, with laying hens in a shed

PET owners could face jail for causing “mental injury, suffering or distress” to animals under a Bill to be ­tabled by the Greens in State Parliament this week.

The Bill would also outlaw greyhound racing, battery hens, sow stalls and rodeos.

The proposal would see emotional distress in animals classed in a similar way to that in humans and would allow owners to be fined for chaining a dog up for weeks, leaving an animal in a tiny cage, or causing an animal to become emaciated, miserable or to cry all the time.

Greens’ leader Cassy O’Connor. Picture: RICHARD JUPE

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the Bill was in line with the “contemporary understandings of animal behaviours and an evolving ethical framework that recognises animal rights”.

She said their Bill would bring the legislation up to the community’s current expectations.

The amendment Bill would legislate the definition of pain and suffering of an animal to involve the “physical or mental injury, suffering or distress which can be observed or reasonably inferred”.

The Bill would also outlaw greyhound racing.

The current penalty for a person convicted of causing an animal unreasonable and unjustifiable pain or suffering is a fine of up to $32,600 or up to a year in jail.

The Bill would also ban the use of pronged collars, battery hen cages, beak trimming and pig sow stalls.

“Tasmania’s animal welfare laws fail to protect the rights of animals to live free from cruelty and neglect, placing a heavy, disproportionate emphasis on the profits of industry,” Ms O’Connor said.

“Our Bill is designed to make sure we’ve got the best animal welfare laws in the country and right now we are fair way off.”

A dog who is constantly chained up to a car body in an old wrecking yards. the Greens’ Bill would see emotional distress in animals classed in a similar way to that in humans.

She said there was strong community support for an end to greyhound racing and improving animal welfare.

“At the moment we have quite strong penalties in the Act, but as a state we still allow greyhound racing, chickens to be caged in an area the size of an A4 sheet of paper and puppy farming,” she said.

“The law as it is now is not modern or in line with community expectations.”

She said the Greens wouldn’t bring their Bill on for debate yet because they wanted to give the major parties an opportunity to hear what the community thinks about it.

The Bill is expected to be debated at the start of next year.