CHAIR: Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the National Press Club and today's National Australia Bank Address and welcome to Hugh Wirth.

Dr Wirth as you've just heard has been President of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for, for most - just about as long as most people in this room can probably remember. He was just telling me that last night in Melbourne they celebrated the one hundred and thirty-fifth anniversary of the organisation which is a considerable achievement given the history of Australia and the relative lack of attention to issues such as these before. Of course, these days, the whole compass of the issues that are canvassed by the RSPCA has broadened considerably and so has the involvement of Hugh Wirth. He's already very well known in Melbourne for his radio appearances as well as his official capacity with the RSPCA. He's been a Vet since 1964 and involved with the organisation since 1969. So he has a wealth of experience to call on in dealing with these issues today and I invite you to join me in welcoming him now. Dr Hugh Wirth.

[Applause]

DR HUGH WIRTH: Thank you Mr Chairman and thank you to the National Press Club for the opportunity to talk to you today about the passion of the RSPCA for animal welfare and my particular passion as well.

Yesterday, the fourth of July was the hundred and thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the RSPCA movement in Australia. In terms of Australia, that's quite an age.

In Britain the RSPCA was established in 1824. So this year, just this month, they've become a hundred and eighty-two years old.

So in actual fact, Australia, although a bunch of squabbling colonies at the time, we led the way for the western world in picking up the issue of kindness to animals.

Yesterday, I spent a considerable amount of the day talking to the media and some of my constituency and to do that I had to think about where the RSPCA was at after a hundred and thirty-five years of activity advocating for animals in Australia, their welfare.

And the things that I thought about were first of all where we as a community have come from in the terms of animal welfare. Where we're actually at now and what we have to do to make a secure and better future for companion animals, farm animals, our wildlife, animals used for what some consider to be entertainment such as rodeos and animals in our zoos and of course animals used for experimental purpose.

At the end of my cogitation I could put it very simply to the media yesterday that Australia has come a very long way and as I've just finished my term as International President of the World Society for the Protection of Animals, I think I can say quite safely that Australia may not be quite leading the way in every aspect of animal welfare, but we're so close to it. That doesn't mean to say that I'll sit back and become complacent and nor will my association, the RSPCA.

Animal welfare in Australia has finally featured on the national political agenda. But these gains are recent and they can easily come under threat and be disbanded.

We've got political grandstanding particularly in the States and lack of accountability. We've got still great pockets of community indifference and therefore complacency and we've got differences in focus, differences in philosophy, sometimes quite extreme and differences in conduct of the various advocacy groups for animal welfare.

Well let's put this in perspective. Where have we come from?

Put simply, animal welfare was never part of the Christian Judaic tradition. The great Eastern religions certainly preached the value of the kinship of humans and animals and they still do today where those religions survive. But in the Christian Judaic tradition there is nothing in the Old Testament and there's nothing in the New Testament that actually lays a religious groundwork for what our relationship should be to animals.

Frances of Assisi attempted to do something about this when he was alive and he probably did more than any other person in the Christian denomination to try and get some semblance of religious basis for our relationship.

What drove animal welfare to the forefront of course was the humanist revolution that occurred in the United Kingdom at the end of the Eighteenth Century/early Nineteenth Century. Simply put, the humanist tradition said that the down trodden, those humans who had no hope of representing themselves deserved justice, deserved a fulfilling life, deserved not to be exploited, deserved not to suffer.

The leader in that group of course was William Wilberforce. He was appalled that human slavery still existed in the British Empire and was justified on the basis of the Bible and secondly the appalling cruelty meted out to children who then were factory fodder in the emerging industrial situation.

He took on the might of the British Empire and won. How he did this is a matter of history but having said this and having abolished slavery and brought about some measure of control about cruelty to children, it was a simple and logical thing to move to animals. Animals were simply property and under the law and under cultural tradition you can do anything you like to property and if that means thrashing a horse in the main streets of London or Melbourne in 1871 you did so and nothing would be done about it.

He had a number of supporters, one of whom was Richard Martin. Richard Martin was a flamboyant Irishman, a Member of the House of Commons. He even put up his Martin's Folly, a particular keep on his property where he in fact interred people he considered were cruel to animals. He had no right to do so but he did it.

But he understood that in order to get social change accepted by this - by the political establishment, by the governments of the day, when the community had already accepted a change, you had to passage law and underpin social change with law. That's precisely what Richard Martin was able to do.

But of course, in order to get social change the real truth is you have to engage people power. And people power only occurs if you have the ability to engage ordinary members of the community because you're one of them and you're saying what they think and what they've come to understand.

Arthur Broom, an Anglican Cleric, understood all of this and it was he who spearheaded the foundation of the RSPCA of the United Kingdom, taking up very valuable issues, core values that our friend, our friend Wilberforce had put before them. That all living creatures were entitled to a fulfilling life and free of cruelty and suffering inflicted by humans. That all living creatures have feelings. They may not be human feelings and they may differ from species to species but they have feelings and if you have feelings you can suffer. Today we call that centives.

And all - and he looked at of course Genesis that says humans can have dominion over the animals and all creation and he looked at the New Testament that said absolutely nothing and he said, Wilberforce that is, yes, humans may in fact use animals provided that use is legitimate, is humane and is done with compassion. It's an interesting thing that that was one of his core values because it's the centre of problems even today.

And lastly he said one other thing and it's something that I think that Australians have yet to even swallow let alone anyone else in the Western world. That the health and welfare of humans and animals is intertwined and inseparable. I've no doubt the RSPCA will continue to have arguments about that for a very long time to come.

Well, we're looking still at - at the issue of where we are.

The positives. Animal welfare has become a mainstream political issue, not just in Australia but worldwide and from my observation, again as President of the International Society over the last two years, I would say it's the last two or three years that certainly in the Western world animal welfare has become a mainstream political issue differing from conservation and differing from environmentalism.

Here in Australia we've done something unique. Something that has gobsmacked all of my international colleagues. We have, with a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of negotiation and a lot of co-operation, last October brought forth the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy. A Commonwealth document which all the Ministers in the States have put their hands up to. Whether of course that follows that the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy will be properly implemented - I'll have some comments on. But it's something that is unique to us. It shows that we're world leaders. It shows that we're determined to get commonality about animal welfare in this Federation of ours. It's not only the Treasurer of this country who's saying that Federation in Australia needs review. It does to achieve the welfare of animals.

But the other positives of course are that animal welfare is impacting on what you and I would call developing countries and some very surprising countries. The World Society for the Protection of Animals has been pleaded with over and over again by the government of China to establish a regional office in Beijing. It's an opportunity we are not going to reject, even though the battle there is almost the battle of the RSPCA over the last a hundred and eighty-two years. But, nothing ventured and nothing won.

Eastern Europe has thrown off the Communist yoke and is interested. India has always been interested. But the other countries in Asia of course are interested as well.

But finally, and this goes back to Wilberforce, something's going to occur in the next two or three years that Wilberforce would be immensely proud of.

The WSPA has led its seven hundred member Societies in a battle to see that the United Nations, the Parliament of Nations will come and agree to a declaration for the welfare of animals. And that declaration will be modelled on the Amsterdam Protocol. And what's the Amsterdam protocol? Something very simple but very powerful.

All living creatures, and we're talking of animals in this case, all living creatures are sentients in other words they have feelings and can suffer. And if that is agreed to by the United Nations, it will mean that governments that sign on to this declaration will have to take that into account when they're dealing with developments and changes that impact on animals.

Well what about the negatives of today?

The World Health Organization this year has simply stated that the worst animal welfare problem in the world is stray dogs. That may surprise you all coming from the RSPCA. But they have estimated there are at any one moment four hundred million stray dogs in the world.

We've got a battle on our hands to do something about this because what they do with those four hundred million stray dogs is just indescribable. There are those who clean them up by simply poisoning them. Horrific cruelty. There are those who throw them down old mine pits and let them battle them out on the bottom and starve to death. There are others who chuck them onto rubbish tips and again let them battle it out or starve to death. And there are others who mass electrocute them and it takes them usually forty to sixty minutes for every one to die.

That's a - they're cruel management issues but they are welfare issues.

There is the issue that I referred to before, the battle to decide whether in fact Wilberforce's core value that humans can use animals for any purpose is in fact correct. Does that entitle us to put massive numbers of animals in cages so that they can't turn round, so they can't walk, so they can't flap their wings, so they can't do the normal behaviours of, of animals and go into all sorts of ridiculous activities simply because they are so frustrated?

The fragmented responses from governments in Australia is something that we're all used to over a whole range of social, welfare issues. But it's also a problem for animal welfare. There is no one consistent Ministry in Australia that deals with welfare, except in the State of Victoria.

You've got the wildlife people doing the wildlife thing and they don't worry about welfare, they're only interested in survival of the species so conservation is their go, nothing to do with welfare.

You've got companion animals in local government and local government is only interested in managing the situation. They don't care about welfare. They do care about how many dogs you've got on your property and whether they fly out and bite people. That's managing. That's not welfare.

And of course you've got farm animals which is dealt with a very traditional, agricultural Ministry and that's a core problem. That we've got eight legal jurisdictions doing animal welfare in eight entirely different ways. And we've got sitting on top the Commonwealth government now that has recognised through its Australian animal welfare strategy that it's got more to do than just be an honest broker. It's got a lot more to do. But of course under our Federal system we won't be here to see that achieved.

Lastly, we've got deep divisions in the animal welfare movement and why have we got that? Simply because there are now a new philosophy - there is now a new philosophy that says that animals cannot be used by humans for any purpose. That in fact the use of animals comes down to exploitation. It's what William Wilberforce got rid of at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He got rid of human exploitation on humans but now we've turned the table and we're exploiting animals.

There are deep divisions that need to be healed and the trouble is that the deep divisions have caused mistrust in all of the stakeholders that are dealing with animal welfare. So co-operation is thrown out the door. The baby's thrown out the door with the bath water and animal welfare is the poorer for it.

When we're referring of course to farm animals we talk indeed about the issue of intensive farming and one has to qualify intensive farming. Where I come from in Victoria, the way they milk dairy cows is intensive farming, if you compare that with the dairy industry in Queensland - but they're still all grazing animals.

But what I'm talking about is the intensive farming where animals are housed. Now I'm not, as President of the RSPCA, fussed about animals being in a house, I'm an animal and I'm in a house. My animals live in a house with me very frequently. But it's what happens in that house and how those animals are confined and what happens to them that is of great moment.

The Bramble Committee set up in the 1980s by the United Kingdom government produced a voluminous report on the issue of intensive farming. The herding together of large numbers of animals to produce large quantities of food to sustain us but production was the goal at the cost of animal welfare. The Bramble Committee's report, as I said was voluminous with very large numbers of recommendations. It was put to bed for fifty years and is only coming forward now. Not necessarily be coming forward because of animal welfare interests in 2006 but rather the community interest has changed to saying - I don't like eating meat from chooks that have been housed twenty-five thousand chooks to a pen - into a house I mean. I think my health might suffer.

And there is another force as well - environmentalism. If you've got twenty-five thousand chooks in a shed it must be bad for the environment.

That's got nothing to do with welfare but the Bramble Committee's report is being brushed off and looked at again.

So Mr Chairman, what do we need to do to correct some of these faults?

Well as a community we have to as an Australian community accept responsibility for the welfare of all of our animals.

Secondly, we have to do something about educating people about the correct relationship between us and our animals, whether they're wild or domestic.

It's not good enough to say leave it to the RSPCA, a charity that survives purely on the goodwill of people to fund us and to leave us legacies. Where - we have followed from Wilberforce and said education is the key.

Richard Martin, the flamboyant Irishman said, I want this Society that you've invented to prosecute only when you must.

Education is the key for future generations.

But government has got to come together with the community on this score. And obviously if we're to believe Arthur Broom, if we are to understand that community change comes from a community based organisation, then we have to make up our minds about support and I put it to you, obviously as President, that the RSPCA's worthy of support.

With government - government's got to accept responsibility and allocate it to dedicated Ministers. We can't have this fascicle situation continue. The Commonwealth government for its part must negotiate a shared national approach. A co-operative Federal approach. That might not please people in the States, but that's what we've got to do.

We must grasp this Australian animal welfare strategy by the horns and we must see that it is implemented. The Government for its part, I understand, has given us the money to do it but there's got to be generated goodwill and co-operation to see that it happens.

The Commonwealth government also needs to lift its game diplomatically. On the whole vexed question that upsets Australians about inhumane slaughter of its animals overseas can't be handled by private enterprise. It's got to be handled at a government to government diplomatic level so that the changes we expect, the changes we tolerate for our animals is also imparted to our trading partner.

And finally Mr Chairman and the reason I'm here today, is to simply state that there must be a peak Ministerial council established by our government on animal welfare. We will never get co-operative Federalism, we will never ever get the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy in place unless there is one peak Ministerial council here in Canberra involving the eight States and Territories and of course the Commonwealth government.

At the moment you've got peak Ministerial councils on wildlife who don't look at welfare. You've got no peak Ministerial council on companion animals and you've got a peak Ministerial council on production animals or farm animals.

Now finally the advocacy groups have got to open dialogue with each other and find a common language. It's no good warring, it doesn't help what we're dedicated to do.

We've got to share research and we've got to share knowledge. At the moment it's easy to do because the world is a global village.

We've got to think more about animals as sentient beings, not a species to be just simply concerned. If we bothered to do that then the recent example of the controversy over the import of Thai elephants would never have happened.

And lastly, the - the animal welfare groups have got to become more professional in their commitment, their internal processes and their community outreach.

Mr Chairman, I'm passionate about animal welfare. I think Australians have done a marvellous job so far but we've got plenty to do yet.

Thank you.

[Applause]

CHAIR: Thank you Dr Wirth. As usual we have a period of questions from our media members. The first one today is from Michael Thompson.

QUESTION: Yes Dr Wirth, Michael Thompson from Rural Press. You mentioned animal welfare now being on the mainstream political agenda and also the, the philosophical rift if you will within the animal welfare movement. Arguably the reason animal welfare's on the political agenda is due to the extremist tactics of some of those groups, often violent and illegal in their methods in arguing that animals should have the same rights as humans. Given your statements that animals are also sentient beings, how do you rationalise that difference in philosophy and how does the RSPCA protect itself from being hijacked from within by members with more extreme attitudes than yourself?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well the first thing I need to say to you is that the extremist - the extremist groups who take illegal action to get their point across are in fact a minority and whilst all of the stakeholders, whether it's the RSPCA, organisations like the various national - animal production groups, whilst they allow these people to be extreme, they'll get away with it. We've got to find the proper formula to bring balance back into the debate. And what I've been trying to say is that people who believe in animal rights, the majority of those people are not extreme in their attitudes and so we shouldn't attack all of the groups and all of their views simply by the behaviour of one. Now, I've been through this myself at a social function in Melbourne in front of a whole three hundred people. I had acrylic paint chucked over me, my dinner suit and everything else. It's interesting I - the hotel staff said I should change. And I said what do I change to? And I had to - I had to continue the night while paint dried. It's an interesting experience to have paint drying. But I took action and I wouldn't allow the Chief Commissioner of Police, nor would I allow the government to ignore what had occurred. And I raised the issue in the media instead. This is not helping animals. This is not getting the point across. There is an opportunity for the animal rights movement to persuade the RSPCA that our traditional view that humans can use animals is incorrect, or to reach some other point. Now unfortunately they haven't done that. Within the RSPCA we review our policies, our written published policies every year. At the moment we can see no reason to change but that doesn't mean to say we aren't abreast of developments in knowledge and development in science. What I'm saying is that the open warfare has got to stop and we have to isolate these people who act illegally and come to a mutual understanding. A co-operative understanding for the RSPCA and the various animal producer groups and I include companion animals in that.

CHAIR: Next question's from Laurie Wilson.

QUESTION: Laurie Wilson, Freelance Journalist and Director of the National Press Club Dr Wirth. I just want to pick up on that and say how do you expect to drive a national strategy for animal welfare when you have this range of divisions and you alluded to stakeholders and in a sense I think you were probably alluding specifically to the various groups that you've just talked about, but in a sense, we're all stakeholders and perhaps you were talking, probably were talking as well about that broader group, the community. You also said I think that, that there's a significant level of indifference out there in the community. So, how do you expect that governments who you seem to be suggested have abrogated their responsibility should in fact take this forward?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well I'm trying to be positive about this Australian Animal Welfare Strategy and the role of the Commonwealth government. But I've outlined why I think it's going to fail because in all of the sectoral group meetings, these are the various meetings based on what we use animals for - it's - the divisions are there to be seen and we've got to do something about that and a peak Ministerial council is the first way because you've got to get co-operation with the States. But there is some cultural issues. For instance, in talking to the dog fraternity, the dog fraternity claim that I have led this great revolution to stop tail docking of dogs. Therefore they won't discuss anything to do with compulsory desexing of dogs, re-housing of dogs out of our shelters. You know we deal with a hundred and thirty-three thousand animals in the RSPCA shelter system a year, unwanted animals. So, there are a whole lot of issues, cultural issues, that have got to be overcome to make all this work. And I'm quite sure that if the Commonwealth government can get the State governments on side and united behind all this we will win. It's not impossible.

CHAIR: Glen Milne.

QUESTION: Glen Milne, Dr Wirth from News Limited, Sunday Publications and The Australian. I don't know about you but my moment of truth in the supermarket always comes in front of the egg counter where my daughters absolutely refuse to let me buy anything that's cruel to hens. But what I find is that the labelling is often false and misleading. There seems to be a genuine attempt by some producers to give the impression that they are producing these eggs humanely when they're clearly not. I wonder what we can do about that and you as an organisation can do about it? And a second question if I may. You talked about a peak strategy for animal welfare. Would this include a Ministry for Animal Welfare at a Federal level and if that's the case, how do you get around the National Party?
DR HUGH WIRTH: Very well. Well the first question first. The, the issue of product labelling in other words where was this produce - animal produce obtained from and under what method of production has been around in the debate for a long time. The RSPCA has been continually advising both National and State governments that product labelling is essential from a pure consumerism point of view. We've got to the point where caged eggs is stamped on the carton and also free-range and also - oh dear it's escaped me - barn-laid is stamped on the label. And you're quite right, because I'm a consumer, and when I go to buy my eggs there's always a cue in front of me running their hands down over the various things. But you are still right that the general box is prettied up with Old MacDonald's farm sort of images which is misleading. We can only continue the battle but the trouble is that it's the negotiation between the government and the egg producer groups over this issue and often the government says well they won't go any further, we've got to accept this incremental progress. It's going to come of course over a whole range of other, other reasons. In the United Kingdom at the - at the recent annual meeting of the WSPA, we learnt that last year in the United Kingdom fifty percent of all eggs sold in supermarkets came from accredited free-range farms. Now some of that purchasing was done because of animal welfare, but most of it was done about fear of health issues. Too many antibiotics in caged produced eggs, too many vaccines, too many this, too many that, not good for me, Joe Blow the citizen who's buying it. And there's the environmental issues as well.
Now turning to the other of business of course our old Constitution of 1901 didn't recognise animal welfare and it is not in the Australian Constitution. Mind you that hasn't stopped successive Commonwealth governments and successive National Party Ministers to use other powers such as power over quarantine, import/export to start to impose animal welfare matters on the States and others of course have come about through negotiation. I have to tell you that things are changing politically. Even the National Party realises now that animal welfare is in everybody's mind despite what I've said about pockets of resistance. That animal welfare has become a mainstream political issue and so they have to shift. That doesn't mean to say there isn't a bit of resistance. Peter McGauran keeps telling me - I went to school with him and I'm his buddy - that doesn't stop me.

CHAIR: Maurice Reilly.

QUESTION: Welcome to the National Press Club Dr Wirth. Thanks for coming. I'm interested in the views about how Federalism works or doesn't work as the case may be or could work better. I think that issue's put in a whole raft of issues from people who stand up in this forum, but I wonder if you would care to point out - and presumably most of them think it's a State responsibility about animal welfare…

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well that's where it is - in Constitutional terms, that's where it is. That's why the recent Bill was looked at by the Senate and rejected to make it a National…

QUESTION CONT'D: I wonder whether you'd be able to give us a - a report card commentary on the various States about who's the most progressive in this area and who might be the least progressive and might need a bit of a push along in making this a better outcome for the community?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Oh dear, Now it's State rights versus. I have to say and this is my own view, not the Society's view. If you look at the conduct of Victoria over the time since 1871 it's led the debate. There have been some times when the Society has gone through complacency and stupidity but it's led the debate and we do have a single Ministry responsible for animal welfare in that State which I fought to get established and I had a lot of my colleagues in my profession who were within the Department of Agriculture to achieve that. The Department of Agriculture fought bitterly to stop that happening. But it happened and now it's common place. And so all welfare issues, even dogs and cats is dealt with in that area, simply because they're animals and the people who are in the Department of Agriculture use their hands, like me, they know animals, they know the rear end of a cow, or a rear end of a Great Dane and what to do about it which local governments certainly don't. So you've got this farcical situation of say in Western Australian where there is a State producing eighty-six percent of all live animal exports from that State - from Australia I mean. We have new regulations, standards for the export of live animals. The RSPCA's put its hand up to those standards even though we're opposed to the actual export of live animals for slaughter, but we put our hand to those standards. Three of the standards have got to be implemented by the States. In this case Western Australia. Two have to be implemented by the Commonwealth. The standards aren't being implemented by the Western Australian government and why? Because animal welfare is not within the Department of Agriculture. It's within the Department of Local Government whose philosophy is we'll manage animal issues. So they don't get a big tick from me. Queensland used to be like that, so did the Northern Territory but they've changed their legislation. They've caught the flavour, even though they're agricultural States, they've caught the flavour that Australians are interested in the welfare of animals. In terms of New South Wales, they have a troublesome Upper House and a lot of the reforms that I know the New South Wales government wants to put through can't get through the Legislative Council. That's a good reason to abolish it in my book. And finally, good old Tassie, well, good old Tassie. They have little crises every so often and that pushes them along. Such as the recent rodeo crisis. Everybody else has got common guidelines, common regulations for rodeos, didn't get to Tassie, didn't get across Bass Strait. It's got there now. It cost the death of a horse and the death of a cow but we've got them.

CHAIR: Next question's from Michael Linke.

QUESTION: Dr Wirth, you've said during your discussion, a hundred and thirty-five years the RSPCA's relied on the support of the communities and now it's increasingly more a government responsibility, but there's a lack of government funding going into RSPCA specifically here in the ACT and across a number of States. Perhaps your views on where the government should look to increasing - or how the government should look to increasing funding into the State societies and the shelters run across the country?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well the real truth of the issue about the RSPCA is it allows various Ministers to go to bed and sleep soundly at night. In other words, it's the RSPCA that takes the community slack. You know I have - I have letters that I open every day, Dear Dr Wirth, I applauded you for ex number of years, however, underlined, you have done nothing about a, b, c, d, e. Why isn't the Minister getting that because he's responsible? I'm not Parliament. He's got the power. So the RSPCA with its Prosecution Inspectorate of which seventy-five percent are not breaches of the law, the complaints we receive, but nonetheless we're doing all that work on behalf of the community, we're supported in that work by the community. Several times in Victoria, a Minister of the Crown has tried to get rid of the RSPCA Inspectorate and promptly got rid of himself such is the community uproar. We believe that if we're doing the work of the community for and on behalf of the government which represents the community, we should be supported financially. I don't talk about them, the government, supporting our political aims, our policy aims. I don't think about that. I'm talking about where our Inspectorates deal on behalf of the government. Where we take the flack over various issues - that should be paid for by the government. My government gives us three hundred and fifty thousand and they say I'll get more but… The total cost of the Victorian Inspectorate's 2.5 Million. The people who are kind enough to leave us their house or their property are paying for that. I think it's wrong.

CHAIR: A question from Bidda Jones.

QUESTION: Bidda Jones, Chief Scientist RSPCA Australia. Dr Wirth, this follows on from the previous question I suppose, because it relates to funding. Two parts to it. You talked briefly about research and animal welfare. You touched on that. How important do you think research and development in animal welfare science is to progressing animal welfare in Australia and where do you think we stand internationally in that regard? And secondly, do you think there's sufficient government funding to progress animal welfare science given that there's been an allocation of 6 Million dollars towards the Animal Welfare Strategy. Do you think that should be accompanied with similar funding amounts in animal welfare science?

DR HUGH WIRTH: The short answer to you is yes. It's not good enough to have just for yours, we need to have animal welfare science further progressed and there's certainly not enough of them. A lot of the science that is done is to prove the point made by a particular national production unit. In other words, to prove that chooks actually love being jammed into a cage. Or to prove that sheep actually feel excited about a sea cruise to Saudi Arabia. If we're to overcome the problems that I've alluded to - in other words the divisions in the debate - we need good quality animal welfare science. And there are some interesting people, well qualified to do that in Australia. But it does need further funding and it does need recognition by everybody, all stakeholders including government - that it's essential. Now I look forward to the decision by my colleagues on the - on the ORR's Implementation Committee here in Canberra to try and get an animal welfare CRC up in the next round. I think it's utterly essential. We've got of course as you know, a University Chair in [indistinct], the University of Queensland and we've also got an animal science centre in Melbourne where I come from but I think a CRC is absolutely essential. There's another issue that troubles me as a Veterinarian in animal science and that is that a lot of people nowadays seem to think that the world literature only started with the invention of a computer. And all of the other things that have been published and put into little pigeon holes and forgotten about. So we are in danger sometimes of re-inventing the wheel. But it's an essential ingredient and thank you for asking.

CHAIR: Back to Michael Thompson.

QUESTION: Yes Dr Wirth, luckily we've got a small crowd, I get to have a second swing today. I just wanted to ask you about the issue of mulesing with sheep. If the sheep industry meets its goal of having a commercially viable and widely available alternative to mulesing by 2010, post 2010 how do you think that issue should be policed? Should we see government agents going on farm to detect whether farmers are actually - still using mulesing to prevent fly strike?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well there's a couple of things that I want to say about that - using that as an example. The first is that I think the time has come in Australia where when we do anything that I would call a surgical animal husbandry procedure, whether we're docking sheep tails, whether we're musling, whether we're spaying cattle, you know the list - de-horning - the list goes on and on. Marking of animals. The time has come to take that intermediate step between what we do now and what Europe does under anesthesia and that is to ensure that only the people who are well qualified, well trained and experienced do such tasks. In other words if you're a musler you should be an accredited musler. If you're a person who drives long distances over thousands of kilometres with cattle on the back of your truck, your qualifications should be not only to understand the truck and its engine and how to make it go, but to understand that you've got live sentient creatures at the back and understand their needs over a thousand or two thousand kilometres. So that's the first thing I'd say. And it's long since time that the production - production groups did that to get it up. Now that requires courses, they should be put into place through the TAFE system or whatever is necessary. Remember that there is not a very big pool of people in rural areas with a rural background who are ready to be animal husbands nowadays. It might have been fine fifty years ago but it's not now. We're mostly all city based. After all, I've been in veterinary science now as a practitioner for forty-three years but I was born and bred ten kilometres from the CBD in Melbourne. So, you know, it's got to happen. The second thing is that policing of course shouldn't be necessary if it's embraced in this co-operate fashion. The only people who aren't going to obey regulation or laws are those small percentage. Twenty-five percent of the worst who are going to fall through the cracks. And they should be dealt with in the way everybody's dealt with now. I see no difference.

CHAIR: Our last question today is over here on the right.

QUESTION: Thank you. Di Johnson, RSPCA volunteer and member. Dr Wirth, you spoke passionately about the issue of intensive farming and there is of course growing community support for the RSPCA campaigns on that. However, the largest food retailer in the country, Woolworths, recently put out a Corporate Social Responsibility Report, its very first, which I have to say is an excellent document in many other respects. But did not address the issue of animal welfare in relation to itself or its suppliers which looked to be a surprising oversight for a corporately social responsibility - responsible company. Why do you think that is and what can the RSPCA do to get Woolworths and the other big supermarket chains to directly address the question of animal welfare for themselves and their suppliers?

DR HUGH WIRTH: Well simply put it's people power and we haven't engaged people power sufficiently. We have started the process pioneered by the RSPCA in the United Kingdom of having accredited, accredited - in other words - high animal welfare standard production of eggs and pork. We have not gone into these other areas and what's the reason? Simply because of finance. It costs a lot of money to run an accreditation, an RSPCA accredited system like the English have run. Remember they've got sixty-six million people there and they've got an RSPCA with three hundred inspectors for the size of Victoria. We've only got thirteen. So it's an issue not of lack of will, but the ability to service an accreditation scheme. If we can service the accreditation scheme then we can politically go out and pester people like McDonalds, we can - which we've done - but they haven't actually delivered as yet. We can go and pester Coles and Woolworths. Coles as you know have taken up our accredited barn-laid egg system but Woolworths haven't. Now I apologise to the Australian community over that. But it's a matter of funding. If I had half a dozen more people in the national office in Canberra to run an accreditation system you would see a revolution.

CHAIR: Thank you very much.