Farmers urged to film vegan protesters storming their properties
Farm owners are being urged to arm themselves with video footage and complain to police if vegan activists storm their properties.
More than 20 people invaded the Carey Bros Abattoir near Warwick in southeast Queensland before dawn on Monday as part of a national day of action by animal rights activists.
Last month a distressed farmer fought back tears after 150 vegan protesters stormed his family’s Southern Queensland property, chanting “meat is murder”.
Queensland’s Agriculture Minister Mark Furner has pushed for farmers to help police by gathering evidence against the vegan “zealots”.
“What they are doing is breaching the law. I’m extremely angry and have really had a gutful of these people.”
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Mr Furner promised on-the-spot fines for activists would be rolled out within weeks but said farmers needed to take action.
“They need to take video footage with their phones or whatever they have available and give that to the police as evidence so that a prosecution will be successful but they need to complain to police to start the process.”
‘No right to invade property’: Bob Katter
Federal and state politicians are going into bat for Aussie farmers who have been under attack by animal activists in a cross-border campaign.
KAP Leader Bob Katter said vegan activism targeted two-thirds of employment in North Queensland, namely coal, beef and horticulture.
“Every Australian has the right to put forward his or her point of view … but you have no right to impose your viewpoint upon other Australians and invade their privacy.
“If the government can’t protect a person’s right to privacy, their right to food, their right to private property, then you are not a government and you are taking your wages under false pretences,” Mr Katter said.
Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the states must beef up trespass laws so farm invaders would face serious penalties.
“If I broke into a suburban house in Melbourne or Sydney, I’d expect to be arrested, handcuffed and taken away. Breaking into a farm should be no different.”
Push to tighten up criminal trespass laws
Attorney-General Christian Porter wrote to Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk to consider investigating Under the Privacy Act the group allegedly behind the activism.
Mr Porter also wrote to the state and territory attorneys-general and police ministers to urge them to tighten up their criminal trespass laws.
Privacy laws were changed last Friday which exposed Aussie Farms’ website to significant penalties for publishing farmers’ addresses and contact details.
Farmers already doing it tough through drought: Scott Morrison
Prime Minister Scott Morrison slammed the actions of Aussie Farms as being “un-Australian” while speaking on 2GB radio.
He said it was wrong that farmers should be targeted when they are doing it tough during the drought.
The activists are demanding state and federal agricultural ministers “acknowledge cruelty in the process of killing animals for food, clothing and entertainment” and to add warning labels on animal products.
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