Publishing video footage of animal cruelty could now incur penalties of up to one year in an Australian prison.

The Northern Star, 16 September 2019, p.6:

Animal rights charity Aussie Farms have slammed the passing of a new ‘ag-gag’ law that introduces a criminal charge for “inciting trespass onto agricultural land”.

Several Northern Rivers agricultural businesses were targeted, including Northern Co-operative Meat Company, when Aussie Farms published a map online and called for activists to collect and upload evidence of animal abuse.

But the new law includes simply publishing footage of animal cruelty, or publishing a map of factory farms and slaughterhouses where such cruelty is known to occur, regardless of whether incitement to trespass was intended by the publisher, and regardless of whether the cruelty was legal or illegal.

It follows years of covertly-obtained footage being broadcast to the public by Aussie Farms and other animal protection organisations, revealing widespread practices such as the use of gas chambers in pig slaughterhouses, the live shredding of male baby chicks in the egg industry, and most recently, the slaughter of male baby goats at a high profile Victorian dairy farm.

Publishing such footage now could incur penalties of up to one year in prison.

Executive director Chris Delforce said “consumers had a right to know about the cruelty occurring ... within Australian animal agriculture” and the new law was “designed to limit the public’s ability to see what’s happening inside farms and slaughterhouses”......

On 12 September 2019 the Australian House of Representatives and the Senate passed the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019.

It passed the lower house by a majority of just 8 votes, with Labor, Independent, Greens and Center Alliance MPs voting against the bill becoming law.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Chamber_documents/HoR/Divisions/details?id=732