The court case that could change the way your pork is produced

A test case alleging pigs are subjected to unnecessary suffering could overturn the livestock industry and force up the price of pork.

Animal activists have taken a Victorian abattoir and the meat industry watchdog to the Supreme Court of Victoria, challenging the widespread use of “gas chambers” to knock pigs unconscious before their slaughter.

A screenshot from hidden camera footage taken by activists at the Benalla abattoir.Credit: Farm Transparency Project.

If successful, they say, a ban on gassing pigs before slaughter could create a national precedent that replaces carbon-dioxide gassing with the more expensive electrical stunning method.

The case hinges on whether gassing is a legal method of stunning pigs because they have been observed to exhibit signs of distress and pain during the process.

Animals Australia argues the Benalla abattoir, CA Sinclair, should have its licence revoked because it does not minimise the level of injury, pain and suffering experienced by the pigs it slaughters.

About 85 per cent of pigs slaughtered in Australia are gassed with carbon dioxide in purpose-built chambers to stun them before they are killed, but animal activists and the RSPCA have long raised concerns about the practice, arguing it is painful and distressing for the pigs.

The RSPCA says pigs are moved into a chamber with 90 per cent carbon dioxide before their slaughter, causing them to lose consciousness. Before they lose consciousness, pigs show signs of pain and distress, including what the RSPCA has described as “high-pitched vocalisations”.

Footage covertly taken by Farm Transparency Project activists at several abattoirs and released to the media last year shows pigs being trapped in a metal cage called a “gondola” before being lowered into gas chambers. The distressing footage, which was broadcast on the ABC, shows the pigs thrashing about and gasping for breath.

Charles Shaw, KC, acting for the meat industry regulator, PrimeSafe, told the court Animals Australia had no standing to challenge CA Sinclair’s licence “beyond a mere intellectual or emotional concern or a strongly felt belief that the law should be observed”.

He argued there was no requirement under the Meat Industry Act for meat-processing facilities to take animal welfare into account at all.

“This is after all, your honour, about the killing of animals for food,” he told Justice Andrew Keogh.

Pigs photographed by an investigator hidden inside the top of the chamber during a gassing operation.Credit: Farm Transparency Project

“It is not only not about animal welfare … it’s antithetical to animal welfare, and I don’t shy away from the unpleasantness of that. We all have to live with the reality that those of us who eat meat require that animals be killed for that process, and it’s not a pleasant process.”

After clandestine footage of a gassing operation was aired on the ABC in March last year, PrimeSafe investigated two abattoirs: CA Sinclair and Australian Food Group in Laverton. Australian Food Group has closed but in the Sunshine Magistrates Court in February, it escaped conviction for animal welfare breaches. It agreed to pay PrimeSafe’s costs of about $30,000.

RSPCA animal welfare policy manager Mhairi Roberts said the organisation had long-running concerns about carbon-dioxide stunning, particularly in gondolas that held individual pigs.

“Our view, very much, is that there needs to be research into alternatives to the [gassing] system, and then they need to be made commercially available,” she said.

The RSPCA held particular concerns about gondolas that forced pigs, which were intelligent and social creatures, to enter the cages individually, she said.

“We are very much advocating for both government and industry to invest in that research to find alternatives that are more humane and therefore can be made commercially viable.”

Australian Pork Limited chief executive Margo Andrae did not respond to questions about the relative costs of different stunning methods, but maintained carbon dioxide was “the best option for animal welfare”.

“We care about our pigs, and as an industry, we share the community’s concern for the welfare of our animals. That’s why we adhere to the global best practice of carbon-dioxide stunning – currently, the most humane and effective method of managing pig welfare during processing.”

Asked about the research underpinning the sector’s claim that carbon-dioxide stunning is global best practice, a spokesman for Andrae provided a copy of a comparative literature review of current and potential commercial stunning methods of pigs, which was funded by Australian Pork Limited.

Justice Keogh has reserved his judgment.

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