The Mercury
by Michelle Paine

The next social-justice battle will be fought in the courtroom, says Australia's first full-time animal lawyer.

Katrina Sharman is corporate counsel for Voiceless, a fund for animals, having left commercial law.

"The key focus for Voiceless is about lifting the veil of secrecy around factory farming," said Ms Sharman, in Hobart for a conference.

"It also means looking critically at laws that treat companion animals and other animals quite differently.

"Laws treated slaves, women and children as objects and chattels, the property of others. There were huge obstacles to changing that.

"Animals will gain meaningful legal protection in the same way those social-justice movements gained legitimacy, through the courts and legislature."

The Victorian Bar Association has just established an animal welfare panel -- setting the scene.

"Animals are essentially invisible to the legal system, and it puts the onus on all of us to not just change the law, but raise awareness.

"Think about the public outcry if people were well-informed about what happens to farm animals. Piglets and chickens mutilated without pain relief, confined for their productive life."

When Ms Sharman graduated from the University of NSW there were no animal law courses in Australia. Now there are several, and she's returning to UNSW, as she has to Harvard and others, to speak.

"There will come a time when the interests of animals will be represented in courts in a way that is so much more meaningful than today.

"59 billion animals are kept in farms around the world each year, the majority factory farmed. And 480 million are slaughtered in Australia and half-a-billion raised for food every year, that's 50,000 an hour".

Voiceless was set up in 2004 by finance whiz Brian Sherman and daughter Ondine.

"Animals and Society II: Animal Emotions" is at the Woolstore until Friday.

This article has been reproduced courtesy of The Mercury and Michelle Paine 

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