What are the meat corporations so desperate to hide?
The NSW High Court has just rejected a challenge by animal rights activists against ‘ag gag’ laws in NSW. The Court’s finding that these laws protected ‘privacy’ is absurd – will CCTV cameras be banned from our streets for infringing the privacy of burglars and muggers?
These laws are designed to intimidate those who work to expose cruelty to animals, and hide what animal-exploiting industries don’t want consumers to see: chickens crammed into cages so small they can barely move, cows mired in their own waste, and pigs who will never see grass or the light of day. Animal activists use peaceful means to expose gratuitous cruelty that is inflicted without oversight.
Organisations such as PETA are the only ones actively investigating animal industries, and the RSPCA has stated that such investigations are pivotal to cracking down on cruelty, since they and the police have very limited powers to investigate farm cruelty, and the laws are full of loopholes and exemptions.
If the government and meat industry want to deter activists from documenting the brutality of these corporations, they should legislate for transparency: place CCTV cameras in all farms and abattoirs. Let the public see the horror that is animal agriculture.
