Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants animal rights activists who target farmers’ homes to face jail terms of up to 12 months. Animal rights activists who target farmers’ homes and lawful businesses could face a year in jail under proposed new laws to stop disruptive protests.
If re-elected in May, Morrison plans to change the laws to prevent animal rights activist organisation Aussie Farms from using private information about farmers to harass them.
“They are being targeted in the most mercenary way by an organisation that can only think of itself and not think about the real damage that is being done to the livelihoods of these hard-working Australians,” Morrison told reporters in Launceston on Wednesday.
He promised to introduce laws banning people from inciting criminal activity against farmers, with jail terms up to 12 months.
“Those who engage in using such information to incite criminal activity of people going and seeking to trespass or cause these types of injuries to the well-being of our farming community, they will face jail terms of up to 12 months,” Morrison said. “We’re not kidding. It’s not just their farm, it’s their home. It’s where their kids live and grow up.”
Animal rights protesters on Monday launched a cross-border campaign targeting a busy Melbourne street, plus abattoirs and farms in Victoria, NSW, and Queensland. The nationally coordinated trespass action has been called an “attack on regional Australia” and the nation’s $22 billion meat industry by the Australian Meat Industry Council.
Patrick Hutchinson, chief executive of the council, said that five member operations on the eastern seaboard, as well as a number of other farm businesses, had been illegally disrupted by the activists.
“Of course people are entitled to their own views, but illegally entering facilities is just not OK,” Hutchinson said. “It creates biosecurity risks, it leads to breaches of privacy, it is potentially unsafe for the activists themselves and at the end of the day it puts at risk jobs in regional communities.”
Affected businesses included the Carey Bros abattoir at Warwick in Queensland, Southern Meats in Goulburn, NSW, and six Victorian locations, including Westside Meats at Bacchus Marsh, MC Herd at Geelong, and O’Connor Beef at Pakenham.
“It’s an attack on regional Australia, pure and simple,” Hutchinson said. “Activists come in from the city, they cause trouble, they create images that are not representative of the work our members do, they damage a business’s ability to operate, and then they’re gone.”