Page 1465 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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I will accept what the circus lobby has said in relation to Alfred Court and his training methods as a valid criticism for the purpose of this debate. The obvious corollary to this change in training methods is that what may have been acceptable as far as the caging, tethering and transport of these animals in Court's day is no longer acceptable now. Zoos have changed remarkably over the last two decades, but circuses - and this is their proud boast - have remained unchanged for 150 years.
Nor do I accept the claim that it will be the death of circuses. Human circuses, including the Cirque du Soleil, Cirque de Archaos, Circus Burlesque, Circus Oz, the Circus for Animal Rights, the Pickle Family Circus, Circus Smirkus, Nexus Circus, China's Beijing Circus and Australia's Fruit Fly Circus, are achieving terrific success, not only in their own countries but also internationally, in recognition of the entertainment and enjoyment they provide without the barbaric use of these types of exotic animals. The great circuses of Europe are beginning to phase out their animals. The Moscow State Circus has toured the world without them and has done so with phenomenal success. This amendment will not kill the circus. Indeed, it may well save it from extinction.
Is my amendment the thin end of the wedge? According to the Canberra Times on Sunday, the president of the ACT branch of Animal Liberation, Ms Dominique Thiriet, said that my proposal did not go far enough. In some respects I accept her view. However, I do not believe that the community is as convinced that cruelty to domestic animals in circuses is as systemic as it is for exotic creatures. I believe that the community, unlike the Opposition, makes a distinction between, on the one hand, animals which can be trained by encouragement and reward and, on the other, those which have to be physically coerced, perhaps cruelly, to perform.
I think they also make a distinction between animals which can be released in the local paddock after a show and those which remain all but forever in cramped, unhygienic cages or are shot should they escape to the local supermarket. I believe that they also make a distinction between, on the one hand, animals which may endure accidents in unfortunate circumstances such as falls at races and, on the other, animals which are mistreated through routine indifference to their basic needs.
I also believe that they have the ability, unlike Mr De Domenico and Mr Westende, to understand the difference between caging a tiger and caging a budgie. It is not that the public are indifferent to the suffering of domestic animals, but that they believe that cruelty to them can be controlled by regulation of their treatment. Steeplechase horseracing is one example where, with no great hue and cry from the racing public, it was felt that the incidence of mishaps was of systemic proportions and the practice had to be stopped.
This proposal is not the thin end of the wedge, unless those people in charge of animals wish to make it so. Leaving aside the question of the suffering and humiliation of animals for training and performance, the inescapable fact is that exotic animals in circuses require a level of systemic cruelty in their caging and transporting which is simply unavoidable. The unavoidability of the cruelty is what makes the circumstances of the exotic animals unique.
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