Dr. Rosemary Elliott, President of Sentient, The Veterinary Institute for Animal Ethics, said when giving evidence to the NSW Parliament in 2022:
“Our animal welfare regulatory system is broken. It fails the majority of animals because the Department of Primary Industries has a conflict of interest arising from having as their core business aims the promotion and profitability of the industries they are attempting to regulate.”
How vested interests trumped science
A proposal was made to prohibit surgical artificial insemination in an early draft of the Animal Welfare Bill 2022. However, the ban was met with steep opposition from the NSW greyhound racing industry, so the NSW government decided that the ban wouldn’t be included in the final version of the Bill.
Playing politics – NSW Libs ignored the science about SAI
Surgical AI was one of six prohibited procedures proposed for the draft NSW Animal Welfare Bill 2022 which was to replace existing welfare legislation and now has done so.
The racing industry complained loudly about the proposed changes and lobbied the then NSW Agriculture Minister, Dugald Saunders. As a result, he removed SAI as a banned procedure from the Bill.
This decision:
- impacts every dog bred for profit in NSW and leaves them vulnerable to the ongoing use of the painful SAI procedure,
- ignored advice from the RSPCA and the Australian Veterinary Association,
- ignored hundreds of submissions made to the inquiry held regarding the draft bill,
- ignored the readily available science that shows SAI is not more effective than more modern alternative methods.
A nine-year study from New Zealand on 1,146 dogs objectively concluded that there is “no difference in whelping rate” after either transcervical insemination or surgical artificial insemination.
Ultimately, the NSW Government’s approach to SAI will inevitably have a negative impact on Australia’s standard of animal welfare.
Greyhound Racing NSW has publicly responded to criticism of its outdated practices –
…banning the technique would have a “significant impact” in the industry. Greyhound racing has been unfairly targeted. SAI conforms to “the highest standards of animal welfare.”
Andrea Pollard, president of the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds, said that arguments in favor of SAI ‘don’t stack up’ .
“Not surprisingly, the industry’s arguments in favor of SAI make no sense,” she said. “They fail to respect scientific advancements in canine AI, like TCI.”
Sentient’s Dr Rosemary Elliott
Dr. Rosemary Elliott, President of Sentient, The Veterinary Institute for Animal Ethics, said when giving evidence to the NSW Parliament in 2022:
“Our animal welfare regulatory system is broken. It fails the majority of animals because the Department of Primary Industries has a conflict of interest arising from having as their core business aims the promotion and profitability of the industries they are attempting to regulate.”
Some of the related media coverage:
January 16, 2023 – The Guardian (AUS)
NSW won’t review decision to allow ‘inhumane greyhound breeding technique
Tory ShepherdA “horrific” breeding technique used on racing greyhounds will not be banned because it would have a “significant” impact on the industry, the New South Wales government says.
The draft legislation last year included a ban on surgical artificial insemination (SAI) in dogs, but the government “blackflipped” and took it out before the final bill was drawn up.
The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds president, Andrea Pollard, described SAI as horrific and said NSW’s removal of the ban was “gutless and failed to respect veterinary science”.
February 1, 2023 – Plant Based News (Global website)
Calls to ban ‘horrific’ uterus removal procedure in greyhound racing dogs
Polly ForemanVets in Australia are calling for a “cruel” Greyhound dog breeding technique to be banned.
The act of surgical artificial insemination, which involves removing a dog’s uterus, is widely carried out in the industry. It is banned in many countries in the European Union, but around 80 percent of racing Greyhounds are bred that way in New South Wales.