A Keilor man was found guilty of animal cruelty this week in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court for violently kicking a dog during a protest in 2021. The man was fined and ordered to pay costs, and put on a good behaviour bond with no conviction recorded, which the RSPCA found disappointing.
The magistrate rightly condemned the unprovoked attack, saying: ‘People should not be lashing out at defenceless animals that are causing no threat to them’.
The RSPCA prosecutor said that it’s hard to provide enough proof to get convictions, but this attack on the defenceless, leashed dog had been captured by a television camera.
Acts of cruelty to dogs and cats are rarely captured, yet there is plenty of video evidence of massive cruelty in shearing sheds. Hours of eyewitness video footage reveal that workers in the wool industry beat, stamp on, kick, mutilate, and throw sheep around. PETA has released seven exposés of over forty facilities in Australia’s wool industry. Abuse was documented at every farm and shearing shed visited.
If the man who kicked the dog had done any of the things routinely done to sheep – punching them, jabbing them with sharp metal clippers and sewing up gaping wounds with no pain relief, he would have gone to jail. Yet the response of governments throughout the country has been to ban the filming of video evidence, rather than banning the abuse itself.
When the magistrate denounced the man for kicking the dog, saying he should ‘not be lashing out at defenceless animals’, the same principle must apply. This vile industry needs to be closed down.