United front in wool fight

Western Australia’s two leading farm lobby groups will continue their support of legal action against a US animal rights group despite the claim being struck out by the Federal Court last week.

The action involves leading industry body Australian Wool Innovation, which is seeking damages from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals president, Ingrid Newkirk.

PETA’s global campaign to stop mulesing has resulted in a boycott of Australian wool products by some major retailers in the US and Europe.

Mulesing, which involves cutting away skin folds around the crutch area of sheep to prevent blow-fly strike, is widely practiced in Australia.

WA sheep produce about 25 per cent of the nation’s wool, with the industry worth $3 billion annually, and both the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA and Western Australian Farmers Federation say there is strong support for AWI’s claim.

WAFarmers president Trevor De Landgrafft said WAFF would continue to support AWI in its claim despite an expectation that the fight would be protracted because of the multiple jurisdictions involved.

“They [PETA] would be hoping they will get off on a technicality but they won’t,” Mr De Landgrafft said.

He said numerous co-applicants to AWI’s claim were Western Australian, and while WAFarmers was not directly financially supporting the case it would continue to put considerable resources into it.

PGA president Sandy McTaggart told WA Business News that while AWI may have further legal work to do there was strong support to demonstrate the economic damage by the PETA campaign.

He said the PGA had not directly financially supported the claim and had not been asked to, but its members did.

AWI is a national research and development body funded by all Australian woolgrowers through a levy system on wool bales.

Former tennis great Margaret Court – the wife of former PGA president Barry Court and now a farmer – recently defended the practice of mulesing, in the process returning serve to fellow tennis great Martina Navratilova, who publicly called for a halt to mulesing earlier in the year.

Although the industry has agreed to ban mulesing by 2010 there has been criticism of the legal action by some Australian woolgrowers who argue that it is outside AWI’s charter and that legal action will hurt rather than foster wool demand.

While Mr De Landgrafft agreed that farmers had different opinions on the issue, he said the representative side of the industry was solidly behind AWI’s action.

“PETA is not interested in talking to the industry. It is interested in industrial sabotage … 1,000 miles away from where growers can defend themselves,” Mr De Landgrafft said.

The fact that WAFF and the PGA are unified in their support for woolgrowers and the AWI indicates the broad level of backing for the campaign, given that the WA farming groups often struggle to find common ground.

AWI has vowed to press on despite the recent claim being its fourth unsuccessful action. The defence is also keen to see the case heard in court. 

In the ruling last week Federal Court Justice Peter Hely rejected AWI’s claim on the grounds that the facts alleged to support the claims were insufficient. However, he granted AWI leave to file a more comprehensive claim.

AWI has indicated it will re-file.