Investigating the Gap Between the Ambitious Goals and Practical Reality of Animal Welfare Law: Understanding the Contributors of the Enforcement Gap in Australia
Date
2023
Authors
Palazzo, Rochelle
Editors
Advisors
Whittaker, Alexandra
Ankeny, Rachel
Hebart, Michelle
Ankeny, Rachel
Hebart, Michelle
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Thesis
Citation
Statement of Responsibility
Conference Name
Abstract
Recent decades have seen increased public concern regarding animal welfare. With this
growing concern, the role of law in the regulation and promotion of animal welfare has been
questioned. A number of shortcomings have been theorised which purport to create a gap
between the intentions or goals of written law and the outcomes of the enforcement process.
Chapter 2 discusses this gap; the ‘enforcement gap’. With a primary focus on the Australian
jurisdiction and extrapolation to other common law countries, this multidisciplinary thesis
investigates this concept further, through analysing the contributors of this enforcement gap.
In order to understand the foundation of Australian animal welfare law, a comprehensive
statutory comparison was undertaken in Chapter 3. Animal welfare is regulated at the
Australian state and territory level resulting in eight different animal welfare statutes. To assess
the uniformity between the jurisdictions, all statutory provisions pertaining to animal welfare
protection were compared cross-jurisdictionally. Chapter 4 adopted similar methodologies to
compare the subordinate legislation, being regulations and codes of practices, that are enabled
by the state and territory-based animal welfare statutes. Collectively, it is established that whilst
the statutes are generally uniform across jurisdictions, each state and territory utilise different
subordinate legislation relevant to their demographics. Chapter 5 focuses specifically on the
State of South Australia and investigates the changes to penalties sentenced in court for animal
welfare offences after parliament increased the maximum penalties.
In recognition of the link between public opinion and law reform around animal welfare,
Chapter 6 focuses on news reports, as a major public source of information on animal law. A
thematic analysis was applied to news articles to understand how animal welfare law is
portrayed to the public. Additionally, any subsequent social media posts from news agencies sharing those articles were utilised in Chapter 7, where a content analysis of Facebook
comments was performed to examine social media discourse surrounding animal welfare law.
The findings suggest the information dispersed through the media and discussed on social
media are likely having a negative impact on community perceptions due to negative
portrayals.
Finally, animal welfare law reform efforts in Australia have commonly been attributed to
addressing the ‘community expectations’, however, parliamentarians have not publicly
disclosed the nature of such public ‘expectations’. Chapter 8 addresses this knowledge gap
through a representative survey of the Australian public to examine current community
opinions of animal law enforcement. Chapter 9 delves deeper into the reasons for the
viewpoints propounded in the previous survey, through a three-day online discussion group. A
shift in community opinions was identified from the common support for harsher sentences to
a more proactive approach to enhancing the strength of the current enforcement model.
In summary, this thesis investigates the novel concept of an ‘enforcement gap’ in Australian
animal welfare law through identifying its potential contributors. This research provides
empirical data to better inform policy makers and legislative reform debates and enables future
research to be targeted towards isolated issues to reduce the enforcement gap.
School/Discipline
School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences
Dissertation Note
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, 2023
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