Page 1476 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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None of these criteria, either by themselves or collectively, constitute a reason for distinguishing between circus animals and animals in other social contexts in our society. I have to ask the question again: Why are we singling out circus animals? We are making, with respect, anthropomorphic assumptions about what animals think in their various social situations. We are assuming that, because we human beings would find it uncomfortable, unacceptable, demeaning or degrading to be running around a circus ring waving our paws in the air or sitting up on our hind legs begging for food, it must be demeaning to animals. We are making an enormous assumption there.
I would contend, from my exposure to animals in captivity, not just in circuses, that those animals actually enjoy a lifestyle where they are cared for, fed, clothed, housed - not clothed perhaps - - -
Mrs Grassby: He dresses his dog up. Now we know what he does.
MR HUMPHRIES: My dog had a coat. He threw it away - he did not like the coat - but he did have one for a short while. Sheep have coats in cold weather sometimes. But that is beside the point. Animals are in a different social context. They have been trained to live in the human social context. We must look at them in that human social context.
Perhaps the worst thing of all about the way in which this Bill proceeds to ban circus animals is the sheer tokenism of it all. We live in a society where animals are exploited in a vast number of ways which this Bill makes absolutely no attempt to address. We conduct animal experiments; we use animals to experiment for the purpose of human beings' needs. We do not ban animal experimentation under this Act.
Mr Wood: We are going to draw up codes of conduct.
MR HUMPHRIES: But we still do not ban animal experimentation. Thousands of animals will be experimented on and will die in laboratories around this country, including in the ACT, even under this legislation. Places where hens lay eggs in battery farms will continue to exist. Thousands upon thousands of eggs produced every day for our consumption will be testimony to the fact that we continue to exploit animals in this community. By far the biggest reason why this constitutes tokenism is that every one of us in this room, with perhaps the exception of Mr Stevenson, consumes animal products. We eat tonnes and tonnes of meat in our lifetimes. We drink milk, eat eggs and wear animal fibres and leather shoes. All of us do that. We kill millions of animals for our own basic human wants. Yet we say that we cannot have animals performing in circuses. What sort of tokenism is that? It is sheer and utter tokenism.
To deal briefly with the point Mr Wood made, simplicity in legislation he said is very good. I certainly support simplicity in legislation, but not when the brush is so broad and so simplistic that it results in injustices. This unquestionably results in injustices. If circuses are cruel, then rely on broad provisions if you like, that ban cruelty to animals. Do not say that we are going to rule ipso facto that circuses are cruel to animals. Exempt them, if you like, from the cruelty to animals provisions. If you say that social circumstances are changing, fine.
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