Page 1475 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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The next was confining animals. Confining and caging are much the same. Almost all animals used by or in other ways interacting with human beings are confined. It is necessary, in a sense, to have animals confined to be able to have that interaction going on. Surely confinement of animals cannot be a criterion on which to prevent their use in a particular capacity. The third criterion was that animals are hobbled. Racehorses are hobbled; certain farm animals are hobbled; certain domestic animals are hobbled. How does that constitute a basis for banning the use of them?
Mr Lamont: For 20 years?
MR HUMPHRIES: No circus animal is hobbled for 20 years, Mr Lamont. You know that as well as I do. The last criterion was that they are trained. Mr Lamont, I am sure, is not going to insult our intelligence by pretending that the only animals trained in our community are trained in circuses. All sorts of animals are trained: Guide dogs for the blind are trained; police dogs are trained; birds are trained to say things. There are all sorts of training.
Mr Lamont: You did not listen.
MR HUMPHRIES: I did listen, and those were the words Mr Wood used as criteria on which to ban circuses. Those were the words he used. All those things exist in other forms in society. Why do we not ban those other activities as well?
Let us turn to what Mr Lamont quoted on behalf of the RSPCA as constituting reasons circuses should not have exotic animals. "Animals exist in abnormal social circumstances" - I think that was the phrase he used. I assume that what he means by that is that they live their lives in ways in which they would not live them in the wild; they would not be doing things in captivity which they would normally be doing in the wild. That is undoubtedly true. Animals in the wild generally do not stand on barrels or stand on each other's backs or do other things they do in circuses. But, of course, animals in human society, of which there are countless millions, do all sorts of extremely unnatural things for animals. My dog sleeps on my bed. My dog jumps in the back of my car and puts his head out the window as I drive down to the shop. My dog eats chocolates out of my hand. Dogs do not do those things in the wild. No animals do those things in the wild.
My dog and practically every other animal in human society lives in abnormal social circumstances. Cows in the wild, animals with udders in the wild, do not consent to having other creatures come along and put metal clamps underneath them to suck milk out of them. Those things do not happen in the wild. They are abnormal social circumstances. But they do not constitute reasons for saying that we cannot deal with animals in those particular ways.
Mr Lamont: Put the whole quote on record again.
MR HUMPHRIES: You can quote it later, Mr Lamont. Another criterion was that animals in circuses were constantly travelling. I remind Mr Wood that many animals constantly travel. Racehorses constantly travel from meeting to meeting. I dare say that they travel more than most circus animals. Are you proposing to ban racehorses?
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