Bartlett's Blog

The Japanese whale hunt in the Southern Ocean is always controversial in Australia. But, as predicted earlier this week, the political and public heat around the issue has escalated further in the aftermath of the ramming and subsequent sinking of the Ady Gil - a small trimaran - from the Sea Shepherd fleet, by a security ship from the whaling fleet. Most Australians are anti-whaling – a stance supported by all ...

The news that a vessel of the Japanese whaling fleet has deliberately rammed and sunk a small vessel of the Sea Shepherd fleet in the open ocean will lift this issue to a whole new level. It could well lead to serious harm to diplomatic and other relations between Australia and Japan. In looking at how things have come to this point, it is worthwhile outlining some background to ...

In my recent posts on calls to ban jumps racing for horses, one of the arguments supporters of jumps racing have made is that people shouldn’t campaign to stop this activity without also campaigning against other forms of cruelty to animals. In that context, I thought I would draw attention to comments made by Ron Clarke, the man who lit the Olympic Torch at the 1956 Games in Melbourne ...

Racing Victoria meets tomorrow (Wednesday 13 May) to decide whether or not to finally follow every other state (except South Australia) in banning jumps racing. (UPDATE - decision postponed until "later in the week") Nearly a year ago, I said such a ban was well overdue. Instead, there was another review, followed by more ‘improvements’, followed by more horse deaths.  At the time I mentioned there had been two ...

Most of my policy related activities at the moment are in the area of migration and multiculturalism, but I am also managing some activity in the area of animal rights and welfare. One of the things I’ve done recently is contribute a chapter to a book on animal law, which has just been released.  The book is called Animal Law in Australasia, published by Federation Press. As the blurb on the back ...

I’m in Melbourne tomorrow evening, participating in a public forum exploring the potential for greater engagement between animal welfare and environment groups and issues.

There have been a series of small protests in Brisbane this week to highlight the suffering endured by hundreds of millions of broiler chickens every year in Australia.  The protests are being held to coincide with the World Poultry Congress being hosted in town. The industry responded by saying they are better than the industry standard, as most sheds only have 18 chickens living in each square metre. Very spacious.

It is a truism that that all mainstream issues start off being fringe issues. I’ve campaigned on animal welfare issues since before I entered the Senate. Despite the fact that there is often widespread public opposition to animal cruelty, animal welfare is still generally treated as a fringe issue in politics, and usually in the media as well. Even though the general notion of significantly improving animal welfare standards ...

Two more horses were killed today in a hurdles race at Melbourne’s Flemington race course. There had  already been eight horses killed in Victorian jump races since March. The Minister has promised to bring forward his review as a consequence, but there were already reviews six years ago and three years ago.

I support the campaigns and efforts to stop whaling by Japanese boats; a view which most Australians seem to share. It is also one of the few issues where the federal Liberal Party is comfortable making very hardline pro-environment and anti-animal cruelty statements. Former Environment Minister Ian Campbell has just been appointed to the advisory board of the Sea Shepherd, a group usually seen as more radical in ...

With all the major parties focussing so heavily on economic matters once again, it can be easy to forget that there are other equally important things which also deserve major political attention. I tried campaigning on a few of these last week, albeit with not a great deal of success.

Last weekend’s Courier-Mail reported “a plan to teach animal ethics in schools which aims to reduce the number of shocking cruelty cases being reported across the state.” It is being promoted by Dr Gail Tulloch from Griffith University.  "The ethical argument is that it's important to extend the circle of compassion out, not just to your immediate family but to your community and your country and then humanity and then to animals." Some ...

I’ve been fairly busy the last few days on various activities which have kept me away from a computer, so I haven’t been able to post anything on this site. Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the things I’ve been working on in recent days – I might expand on some of them in future posts.

When I talk about animal welfare issues, I often feel I am running the risk that I will be accused of being more concerned about (non-human) animals than about humans. This is doubly so when I talk about the use of animals in experimentation. It was therefore irritating, although not totally surprising, that the “Hands Off Our Ovaries” group recently put out a media release saying “Senator Bartlett ...

In case anyone thinks I never praise the state or federal governments, here's a special word of praise to the Queensland government for pressing ahead with their promise to bring in legislation to amend the Nature Conservation Act to ban recreational duck and quail hunting in Queensland.The government had previously announced they would do this, but I hope people will pardon my cynicism in wanting to see if ...

Today Tonight is probably one of my least favourite shows, but I’ll be watching it tonight at 6.30. I understand that they are planing to screen a story tonight on conditions in a piggery in South Australia. While I imagine the conditions there are similar to what the vast majority of mother pigs endure in factory farms around Australia, this particular piggery apparently is part owned ...

A report in the Courier-Mail this weekend gives me cause to repeat the fact I mentioned in a recent post about the clear link between people committing cruelty to animals and violence to humans. The newspaper quoted from a psychiatric report for Francis Michael Fahey, who has just been given two life sentences for murdering two prostitutes in Brisbane. The report states that “he enjoyed cruelty to pigs and ...

On Friday night I attended a fundraising dinner for the RSPCA in Queensland. I wrote some thoughts on the RSPCA a month ago (click here to read them), but in short, my experience with them in Qld is that they are quite effective at what they do, and are willing to try some different approaches to help animals (including people). Last year I spoke in the Senate about ...

There are a range of protests tomorrow against the live export trade. I'll be attending the one in Brisbane on Saturday morning, as will people from a range of groups, including the RSPCA. There was quite a long article in The Australian last weekend about the different animal welfare and animal rights groups in Australia. It starts off by looking at the story behind the gathering and screening of ...

Animals Australia, the group that gathered the footage screened by 60 Minutes last weekend, has released more footage and information about similar levels of cruelty inflicted on Australian animals in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar. All of these countries are major importers of Australian sheep and cattle.