Its time to criminalise all animal abuse

Today Abigail voted in support for the criminalisation of the possession and distribution of crush and bestiality videos in New South Wales. That this is not already a criminal offence is a huge oversight in animal cruelty legislation. The motion was successful.

In supporting the motion, Abigail said: On behalf of The Greens I support the motion and thank the Hon. Emma Hurst for bringing it before the House. Animal cruelty of any kind is reprehensible and the specific kinds of animal cruelty that the Hon. Emma Hurst has drawn to our attention today are particularly heinous.

The sexual abuse of animals and abuse of animals for the sexual gratification of humans must not just be condemned but actively combated. That is what the motion calls for today. Legislation that seeks to wipe out other crimes that are driven in some part by sexual fetish, such as child sexual abuse depicted in child pornography, criminalises not just the abuse itself but the creation, distribution and possession of materials which depict this abuse.

That legislation is a necessary part of our laws. It allows the prosecution of those who incentivise further abuse and gives police the powers needed to investigate this abuse. Animals have no capacity to consent to pain or sexual acts. There is no question about the moral depravity of bestiality or so-called animal crush.

We criminalise acts of sexual violation and animal cruelty for good reason. State or Federal legislation that does not also criminalise the distribution or possession of videos which depict these acts is surely an oversight. There is a gap in the law and we have a responsibility to try to fill that gap. The Greens join the call of the Hon. Emma Hurst to urgently criminalise these depraved acts.

For the full transcript see Hansard here.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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Its time to criminalise all animal abuse

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

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