Animal welfare
Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (09:50): Last year investigators from the Farm Transparency Project set out to document routine legal cruelty such as blunt force trauma to kill piglets and castration without pain relief. This is something that they often do as investigators – they have exposed many factory farms and slaughterhouses over the past year – but this time they discovered something much more sinister. They documented footage of a man committing horrific acts of bestiality on a pig. I have spoken about it before in this place. This pig was confined to a sow stall, unable to move or escape, which is completely legal here in this state. In a shameful display of our weak laws – without going into too much detail – only some of the acts he committed are actually a crime under our bestiality laws, but they are not the laws that I want to speak about today. Despite the Carag Carag man being charged, one year on the investigator who exposed this cruelty has now been charged with trespass for documenting acts of bestiality on a pig. The maximum sentence she is facing for her supposed crime is higher than the maximum sentence for bestiality. Let that sink in for a second. This person who should be thanked for stopping what was going on at this farm is potentially facing tougher penalties. Our government might not support her, but today I want to express my solidarity and thank her for everything she has done for animals and for Olivia the pig, and I will stand by her throughout this process.