"I want my RSPCA back" radical drift spreads from the old dart to Australia

This article was authored by the Australian Deer Association’s policy consultant and first appeared in Conservation & Hunting magazine in 2013.

British Conservative MP Glyn Davies told a packed House of Commons early in 2013 that he ‘wanted his RSPCA back’.

“In my mind the RSPCA was always an animal welfare body, that’s how I always saw it. But I must admit I’m finding it more to be an animal rights body,” he said. Mr. Davies was speaking during a debate on the controversial decision by the RSPCA to spend £326,000 taking the Prime Minister’s local hunt to court.

Many Conservative MPs shared the view that this decision demonstrated that the RSPCA in the United Kingdom is being driven by animal rights activism rather than animal welfare concerns.

Another Conservative MP, Simon Hart said that the RSPCA’s prosecuting role needs to be monitored given “its political and commercial activities”.

Mr. Hart said there is a “gulf between the very good activity of inspectors on the ground whose principal concern is animal welfare and the leadership whose principal concern seems to be animal rights”.

The Telegraph reported a former Solicitor General, Sir Edward Garnier, as saying that if the RSPCA continue to prosecute at such huge expense and in such a disproportionate way, they will be open to public criticism.

He said there is a danger of the RSPCA “using the weapon of the state prosecution for political campaigns,” and believes that while it should continue investigating animal welfare issues, it should, like the police, hand the evidence over to the “dispassionate” Crown Prosecution Service.

Many Labour MPs and a former Green leader Caroline Lucas defended the RSPCA, who remained unrepentant.

“We are as committed to our mission to promoting compassion to all creatures and prevent cruelty as ever”, a spokesman for the RSPCA said.

Some Conservative MPs called for more oversight of the RSPCA’s prosecution arm. However, the Government has no control over the RSPCA because the hunting lawsuits are brought privately.

The same situation does not exist in Australia.

The Australian RSPCA is a private body, and increasingly it is another animal rights lobby group which also provides animal welfare services and runs commercial businesses,such as allowing the use of its name to endorse free-range products - on occasions controversially - for a substantial fee.

Yet, unlike the United Kingdom and most, if not all other parts of the world, it has the power to enter private property and make arrests. The action of the RSPCA in the United Kingdom demonstrates why there is an even greater need to review its privileged position in Australia.

The RSPCA is probably the only private organization with these powers - which were given to it back in the days when it was solely an animal welfare organization.

Two examples highlight the possibility of the abuse of these powers.

First is the celebrated case of Andrew Duff, a barrier stall worker who, in 2010, removed a horse injured in the first lap of a race to prevent the risk of further accidents when the remaining horses raced around the track for the second lap.

The RSPCA charged Mr. Duff with animal cruelty. If found guilty, Mr. Duff faced the possibility of up to 12 months jail or a $14,000 fine and banishment from working with animals for 10 years.

It did not charge Racing Victoria or the Warrnambool Racing Club.

The opinion of Professor Paul McGreevy, a veterinary ethologist at the University of Sydney upon which the RSPCA relied, was dismissed by three leading equine veterinarians.

According to The Age’s Patrick Bartley, who won a media award for a story about this affair, “they blasted the RSPCA’s prosecution brief as curious, obsessive, lacking serious firsthand experience of handling injured or distressed horses, and a philosophical or political intrusion.”

Two years later the RSPCA dropped the case.

It does not apologise for the pain and suffering it inflicted on Mr. Duff. Nor did it apologise for his face being plastered over hundreds of anti-jumps posters that lined the entry gates to major Spring Carnival race meetings. Nor did it offer to pay his legal expenses.

Then there was RSPCA’s raid on the Waterways Wildlife Park in Gunnedah in February 2010 and the removal of several koalas.

The raid, which led to an inquiry by the NSW Legislative Council, was accompanied by a Channel 7 television crew. While Channel 7 knew about the raid, the local vet did not and the raid took place when the owner was absent.

The RSPCA did not show anyone the koalas they removed for weeks and the raid led for a call for the NSW Government to remove these powers from the RSPCA.

It is necessary only to look back over the last 12 months to see how radical the RSPCA has become and why the concerns of British MPs are just as valid in Australia.

In February The Weekend Australian revealed that the RSPCA wanted to shutdown cattle sale yards - a move which either would bankrupt graziers or leave them in the clutches of major meat processors.

The RSPCA does not support the selling of cattle ‘consigned through sale yards’, and according to farm animal’s scientific officer Melina Tensen, the RSPCA guidelines reflected the standards the RSPCA wanted to see in place in the next three to five years.

Within a week the publicity which resulted from the story brought a back down. It seems that the three to five year timeframe is not official policy and, yes, there is a conflict between the guidelines and the RSPCA’s official line that it does not want sale yards banned.

This revelation followed the investigation into the treatment of animals in Indonesian abattoirs, and the publicity following the 4 Corners story on this issue which had the desired result - Canberra suspended the live animal trade with Indonesia.

The cattle industry in the Northern Territory has not recovered from the suspension, which has been lifted, but which is a significant factor in the collapse of cattle property prices – something that is driving graziers to the wall.

The fact RSPCA played a prominent role in this clandestine campaign designed to force a ban on cattle exports to Indonesia should not have been a surprise.

In August 2010 Weekly Times reporter Matilda Abey said that the RSPCA wants the $1 billion a year live-export trade banned, while the timetable to phase out sheep is five years — the same timetable to shut down sale yards. A month before, another Weekly Times reporter Kate Dowler signaled that the RSPCA had the live cattle trade to Indonesia in its sights.

However the response of primary producer organizations was ho hum.

Australian Livestock Exporters Council chief executive Lach MacKinnon said that he “didn’t think it is feasible to think that (the RSPCA) could shut down the live export industry.”

Live exports are not the RSPCA’s only target.

There is its campaign to shut down jumps racing - which might well have succeeded had there not been a change of government in Victoria in 2010 and Denis Napthine been appointed the Minister for Racing.

There’s also the campaign to ban the use of whips, which failed to achieve the desired result despite the naïve response of some racing authorities.

What is not well known is an RSPCA policy which would have a severe impact on the thoroughbred racing industry. In 2011 the RSPCA used its membership of a government advisory committee to argue that the use of foster mares by the thoroughbred racing industry in circumstances other than to raise an orphaned or rejected foal must be discontinued.

It would be interesting to know how many of those who make bequests to the RSPCA, which constitute a critical part of its income, know about its transformation from an animal welfare organization to an animal rights lobby and whether they would have the same level of trust in the RSPCA if they knew.

For example, did those making bequests intend that their money be spent on a full-page advertisement in a Saturday issue of The Age describing the duck season as ‘a twelve week massacre of our native water birds’?

Would they support policies which could shut down the thoroughbred breeding industry?

Do they support shutting down Australia’s live animal export and the havoc that would wreck on those involved?

The RSPCA has moved a long way from its noble beginnings. For many of us, it has moved too far.