Pig welfare inquiry: call to end gas stunning and CCTV on farms

Animal Justice Party, Green and Victorian Labor MPs have demanded radical animal welfare reforms, as part of a pig welfare inquiry.

A Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into pig welfare has called for reforms that could affect all Victorian livestock producers, such as establishing an office of animal protection.

A Victorian Upper House inquiry into pig welfare has called for mandatory installation of closed circuit television in all piggeries and abattoirs, the phase-out of pre-slaughter gas stunning of pigs and bans on sows stalls, farrowing and mating crates.

The inquiry committee chaired by Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell, published a majority report this week that also called on the Allan Government to establish an independent office of animal protection that would “ensure compliance with animal protection laws, streamline complaints, provide expert, evidence-based reform, and monitor animal welfare conditions”.

The majority report, backed by Ms Purcell, the Greens and four Labor MPs, also called on the Allan Government to also:

WORK with industry to innovate research and development opportunities to commercially viable alternatives to the use of CO2 in stunning pigs prior to slaughter and report on alternatives with a reporting date no later than May 2026.

FIND an alternative to the use of blunt force trauma as a suitable method of piglet euthanasia.

MANDATE straw bedding substrate to stimulate natural pig behaviours to prevent injury and abrasion.

INVESTIGATE enrichment aids for farmed pigs for inclusion in the Animal Care and Protection Bill.

MANDATE reporting on the methods of procurement and extraction of semen from boars, and the frequency of each boar used, the method, dates, and frequency of the artificial insemination of each sow.

REQUIRE industry to implement the regular surveillance monitoring and public reporting of antibiotic use on Victorian farms.

SUPPORT farmers to transition to outdoor group housing.

Ms Purcell said in recent years, harrowing footage of pigs in Victorian factory farms and slaughterhouses has been released, resulting in increasing alarm from consumers towards the conditions animals are raised to be killed in and the launch of the Upper House inquiry.

Just last month animal activists from Farm Transparency Project claim they installed hidden cameras inside the Leitchville piggery of pig industry leader David Wright, which allegedly showed pigs lying beside stillborn piglets, rotting piglet carcasses, shed floors covered in mud, excrement and maggots and pigs with mutilated ears and docked tails.

Liberal-Nationals agriculture spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the inquiry report backed by Labor Upper House MPs was biased and needlessly caused angst in rural communities.

“It is extremely concerning and disappointing that Labor MPs have backed extreme restrictions on Victoria’s pig farmers with no scientific evidence to back it up. Labor had the numbers, they had the opportunity to stop this nonsense, instead they sat silent.”

“This report should send a shiver down the spine of not only pork producers, but all agricultural producers in Victoria.

The Liberal-Nationals members of the inquiry committee published a minority report, which Ms Kealy said included recommendations that called on the industry to work at a national level with the support of the Commonwealth department of agriculture to further modernise an already world leading industry.

“This ensures that the most contemporary science is adopted, but will also encourage all states to implement the same set of rules and apply them equally across the country,” Ms Kealy. “This is just the start of the fight for us.”

Australian Pork Limited chief executive Margo Andrae said the industry had “from the outset...had serious concerns about the motives of the people running the Parliamentary Inquiry into Pig Welfare.

“We’ve been worried it has been a vehicle for the Animal Justice Party and other animal activists to achieve their goal of ending pig farming in Victoria altogether. Today those concerns have been realised.”

Ms Andrae said any inquiry based on science and not ideology would have recognised the importance of livestock farming to Australia, and the dedication and care our industry shows our pigs.

“Our industry has demonstrated in this inquiry that it seeks out new science and ways of working to continually improve the way we look after our animals and our people. We have also outlined the severe impacts illegal trespass and farm invasion is having on the mental health and wellbeing of Australia’s hard working pig farmers.”

“We will now constructively engage with government and regulators to ensure they have evidence-based information that calls out some of the misleading recommendations in the report.”