Public animal welfare discussions and outlooks in Australia

Australian society is characterized by a pervasive influence of animals in all aspects of human life. Although most countries use animals as companions, for production and for sport and entertainment, the scale and variety of animals in Australia is unparalleled. For example, companion animal ownership in Australia is among the highest in the world with 62% of households owning a pet (Animal Medicines Australia, 2016). Australia was the highest exporter in the world of beef, lamb, and mutton and goat meat in 2015 (MLA, 2015). Australia also uses kangaroos for human and animal food and deals with pockets of kangaroo overpopulation. Feral dogs, cats, goats, rabbits, and other introduced species pose a threat to wildlife or farming. Although there have been animal welfare concerns expressed by the public in the conventional media and on social media about companion animals, wildlife, animals used in sport and recreation, this chapter will focus on livestock, it being the focus of this book. Although public concerns about livestock animal welfare are well documented in several countries (e.g., European Commission, 2007; Gracia, 2013), there has been an on-going interest in these concerns in Australia (e.g., Parbery and Wilkinson, 2012; Coleman et al., 2015, 2017). These concerns about the livestock industries are not the major drivers of consumer-purchasing decisions because attitudes to livestock welfare is only one of the predictors of purchasing behavior with price, healthiness, and local production being more important for consumers (Coleman et al. 2005; Coleman and Toukhsati 2006). Public attitudes to livestock farming may, however, be a threat to social license to farm (Martin and Shepheard, 2011; Coleman et al., 2015, 2017). An attempt will be made here to tease out some of the possible effects of public concerns about farm animal welfare on the livestock industries in Australia. Suggestions to facilitate discourse among the various stakeholders will be raised with a view to achieving a degree of convergence in opinions and in agreed approaches to livestock farming in the future. The relevance of public attitude to consumption of animal products and to social license to farm will now be discussed in the context of the Australian experience.