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A Blind Eye
Reporter: Ticky Fullerton Broadcast: 21/06/2004
For generations, the RSPCA has occupied a special place in the hearts of Australians.
It has given refuge - and a final resting place - to millions of wretched, abandoned pets. It has prosecuted wanton acts of cruelty. It has lobbied politicians and swayed public opinion on how animals should be treated.
Funded largely by public donations and bequests, the RPSCA has a privileged status as the inspector and prosecutor of state laws on animal cruelty.
But now this unique charity stands accused of betraying the public trust it has enjoyed for so long.
Its critics claim the RSPCA devotes its money and time to the cuddly, PR-friendly flank of animal welfare - usually dogs and cats. Recently the RSPCA grabbed headlines when it threatened action over a live mice-eating contest at a Brisbane pub.
But in the meantime, according to critics, the welfare of many millions of animals which are intensively farmed, or exported live to overseas markets, is being deliberately ignored.
Four Corners asks if the RSPCA is still "for all creatures great and small", or if it has now become a creature tamed by the multi-million dollar industries it is meant to police.
Reporter Ticky Fullerton explores the uncomfortably close relationships that the RSPCA is forging with key industry groups - intensive poultry, pork and live exports - and asks whether these bonds have tied it in a knot of conflict. In its defence the RSPCA argues that it is working with industry for incremental improvements in animal welfare.
In several states a fierce struggle for control is now being waged between farm-friendly members at the RSPCA and those they accuse of being animal activists.
As the autonomous state branches play politics, cut deals and fail to promote national RSPCA policy, national president Hugh Wirth can only watch helplessly from above.
Has the RSPCA become hopelessly compromised? Is it an anachronism in the modern age of intensive farming? Should its role in enforcing laws against animal cruelty be stripped away and left exclusively to police?
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