Support builds for an Independent Office of Animal Welfare

An Independent Office of Animal Welfare at the national level would help develop and progress standards of care for Australian animals. It would be a voice for our animals and a centre of excellence for animal welfare.

Support for an office is growing. Amidst a highly charged national Australian Labor Party (ALP) conference, we were proud to represent your voice and hand over your 20,000 strong petition to federal Labor Members of Parliament Kelvin Thomson and Sharon Claydon, as well as NSW Member of Parliament Penny Sharpe MLC. The Conference recommitted the ALP to supporting the establishment of an Independent Office.

Shortly after the Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten said:

“Animal welfare is important to all Australians, as consumers, farmers and exporters.

To reflect this, the Australian Labor Party was proud to renew our commitment to establish an Independent Office of Animal Welfare at our recent National Conference, to provide additional oversight on policy and practice.”

Next week World Animal Protection Head of Campaigns will present to a Senate Committee examining the Greens Bill to establish an Independent Office of Animal Welfare.

Our next job together will be to make sure it becomes a firm election commitment, and to lobby all sides of politics to support the introduction of an Independent Office of Animal Welfare. All of the letters flowing to the Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce are helping achieve that goal.

Thank you to the thousands of you who have already signed the petition. We need to keep this momentum going to reach our goal of 100,000 signatures before the next federal election to send a strong, clear message that Australians care about animal welfare, and we want our government to care too.

If you haven’t already, sign the petition for an Independent Office of Animal Welfare.