We have seen that policy-making, particularly in the area of animal welfare, involves both the allocation of resources and the mobilisation of values. While international ideas and transnational relationships are significant in this process, there are unique and defining aspects of Australian culture, geography and constitutional arrangements that shape how this contest of interests and ethics plays out. This has implications for our understanding of this increasingly contested area of policy development, but also for our understanding of Australian policy-making more generally. In this volume I have sought to build on the work of many other scholars to present – I hope – a more holistic view of this multifaceted policy domain than we have seen before.
In reviewing the preceding chapters, several wider observations emerge.
The first concerns how history shapes contemporary public policy, and the importance of understanding the historical context of contemporary policy debates. Past policy decisions in a range of areas have had a powerful impact on today’s policy terrain. The initial, unnerved reactions of Europeans to the oddity of native species in the 18th century found expression in 19th-century colonial land clearing and marsupial extermination acts, and have echoes in the kangaroo culls of the 20th and 21st centuries. Early decisions to structure particular industries, such as dairying, to advance nation-building objectives remain politically potent, despite dramatically changed production and economic conditions. At a wider level, the notion that history is naturally or inevitably ‘progressive’ is undermined by the observation that social movements can be effectively demobilised, sometimes for long periods, if internal weaknesses combine with state action to depoliticise particular issues.
A second important observation is that there is a clear dissensus over issues of animal treatment and welfare, both between and within the political elite and the general public. The Australian public, due to a wide range of social and economic factors, has become urban and urbane. Once a nation that famously ‘rode on the sheep’s back’, contemporary Australia is pet-loving and squeamish about the realities of animal production systems. Political and economic elites have an interest in ensuring that issues of animal welfare remain subordinated to other concerns, especially macro- and micro-economic performance. While many issues are subject to this type of misalignment between popular and elite opinion (the privatisation of public assets is a classic example), this makes for a volatile political climate. The public’s comparatively unstructured knowledge and fleeting interest can produce semi-predictable ‘shocks’ that are not easily handled using normal risk management tactics. What this process of periodic issue management conceals, however, is that the public is moving towards an expanded circle of compassion, and increasingly expects that producers will incorporate these concerns into their production processes.
A third interesting observation is the way animal advocates, in challenging the status quo, have not simply worked to create a new discourse around human–animal relations, but have also attacked traditional policy-making as a closed space or ‘iron triangle’. This has taken a variety of forms, first (circa the 1980s), in attempts to gain representation in advisory settings and policy networks, and second (in the 21st century) a shift towards exploring ways to effect change through ‘private governance’ and via systems and structures outside of direct state regulation. In recent years, the deregulation of farming and the move towards neo-liberalism across the economy have reduced the opportunities to use state agencies to achieve new regulatory outcomes in many areas. In adapting to this situation, activists have shown a new pragmatism and a recognition that change can come about in other ways, including changes in cultural norms and expectations, and by harnessing the power of economic systems in constraining and directing consumer preferences.
Innovation and change, therefore, have been recurring themes of the analysis. While the rise of new animal advocacy organisations in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a catalyst for new debates and policy change, each of the major actors in the policy space has been, to some extent, examining new ways to advance their political interests. Australian activists have been creative in their use of media and direct action to promote their cause, within a comparatively conservative political culture. In response, industry organisations have recognised that their natural advantages as ‘owners’ of animal production systems are increasingly contested. Within a complex policy network, relationships have been significantly reconfigured in recent decades in ways that would not have been conceivable throughout most of Australia’s modern history. New technologies have expanded the capacity of welfare organisations and activists to recruit support and form alliances, while organisations and industry are increasingly working together, albeit in uneasy and pragmatic relationships.
In this reshaped policy domain, there is an ongoing dispute over who has the least power and influence, with both industry and activist groups competing for the title of most beleaguered. When it comes to influencing public opinion, both groups face challenges. Although proponents of change may be able to mobilise public support, they must operate within the strictures of community norms that value some animals (especially companion animals) above others, and that tend to favour a modest, weak-rights framework of concern. Meanwhile, few industry actors have the capacity or resources to significantly restructure public opinion, and many are trapped within nostalgic notions of agricultural production that are comforting to the wider community but also completely unrealistic. Industry has tended to burrow into those areas of policy-making where it has traditional strengths. Agricultural policy-making generally remains strongly committed to the status quo, but the industry has a narrowing power base; although it may be able to defend the status quo on a day-to-day basis, it is vulnerable to negative publicity and to issues that cannot be contained in a single portfolio area.
Overall, my analysis has tended to conclude that political elites are not key to the story of change in this policy area. However, while the rise of private governance and non-state regulation is important in explaining how policy adjustment has occurred without the intervention of the state, it is important to recognise that political non-decision-making is not sustainable when it comes to animal welfare. While debates of this type are often subject to strong political avoidance (issues including abortion-law reform, euthanasia and same-sex marriage are recent examples), any area of public policy involving conflicts over basic values will, inevitably, be driven onto the public agenda as participants attempt to force a resolution through decisive action. This ‘crisis’ model of activism has been adopted both by activists who have used the media to mobilise public opinion, and by industrial actors who have called for protection from intrusive direct action. The Commonwealth government’s decision in 2013 to eradicate formal policy development processes can be seen as a form of active ‘non-decision-making’ intended to starve policy challengers of a platform for their grievances. However, these grievances are unlikely to subside without the type of active co-option and neutralisation seen in the early 20th century. As agricultural interests do not retain the type of political or economic influence of a century ago, it is unlikely this trick can be pulled off twice in the history of animal welfare policy debates in Australia.
This leads inevitably to the observation that issues of animal welfare will move back onto the public agenda in the near term. If stakeholders and observers are to effectively make sense of these policy debates when they occur, a systematic analysis of the type offered here will hopefully add value to those debates.