My livestock is my living.
It's hard to describe what livestock means.
When you're brought up with animals, caring for animals
they mean a lot.
PETA and Animals Australia are using shock and awe
to destroy farmer's lives
and farming industries.
Nolong is a rural town in Central Western NSW.
It is a small town of about 1500 people.
Farming would be the biggest enterprise around here.
My name is Andrew Mitchell.
My family has been on the place for 40 years.
Sheep are critically important to our operation here.
We wouldn't be able to run the place as efficiently
and as profitably as we could without them.
i haven't always been a farmer.
I was a vet for nearly ten years,
and I have been back on the farm for the last few years.
Our sheep are shorn once a year.
These animals that are producing the wool
arre very well treated
and they have a great life.
They're shorn for three minutes out of 12 months,
and the rest of the time they're out in the paddock.
and in a very low stress environment.
There is no humane way to use animals
for food and clothing.
So farmers who are using animals for financial gain
do not have the right to ignore, or in some cases allow,
animal cruelty to take place.
My name is Claire Fryer
and I'm campaign coordinator for PETA Australia.
Shearers are paid by volume
which encourages rough work,
it encourages quick work,
and it encourages a lack of concern for the sheep.
In 2014 there was a video expose released
of some very severe abuse
in the Australian wool industry
and showing systemic abuse of sheep by shearers.
During the investigation the investigatiors
did not see anybody reprimanded for the abuse,
and no amount of fluff by industry
can hide the fact that sheep are abused for their wool.
With any industry there's going to be a small minority
of people who don't do the right thing,
and I think shearers in general
wouldn't like to be tarred with the same brush.
We've had this particular shearing team come here
for a long time,
and I've never once witnessed an act
like we saw on the videos.
As a veterinarian, I see a sheep shorn
from a farmer's eyes and also a veterinary perspective.
The sheep aren't in any undue stress from the shearing.
Sheep receive cuts from shearers during the process,
and this does happen, but they are superficial
and sheep have an incredible healing ability
and I see no mortalities and no extensive signs of pain.
I think I speak for all farmers when I say that
if they saw shearers mistreating animals
then they wouldn't start for it.
If I saw shearers behaving like that towards animals
then that shearer wouldn't return to the shed.
I have visited a shearing shed,
I am of course a vegan, I don't believe animals
are ours to use,
andI personally do not like the treatment of animals
while they are being shorn.
It's no surprise that our campaigns will upset farmers
and others who are using animals for financial gain.
So Jona Weinhoften is a vegan musician
who has taken part in our wool campaign.
asking people to leave wool out of their wardrobe.
That campaign was launched earlier this year
and it has caused much debate - of course.
Yeah, that's fairly brutual looking.
It's not much of a sheep though.
My name's Tim Trudgett, I've been shearing since 1981.
We try and be as gentle as possible.
If you hurt them, they play up.
It makes the job harder, it's just counterproductive.
I mean you'd have to be an absolute raw learner
to even do something half that bad.
How many years have you been in the shearing game?
Thirty years.
I've never seen something like that before.
Maybe a dog attack or something.
It just disappoints you to think that someone that
doesn't really know is trying to put their point across.
And it's not right.
I understand that they don't want sheep
or any other animals hurt
but we're not here to hurt them either.
I've sort of got to look after the sheep well.
If you don't do that, then we're in trouble.
We're in trouble because our sheep don't perform
and we don't make any money and that's
our heart and soul.
Heart and soul is looking after our stock.
We wouldn't be doing it.
You ask a lot of guys, they don't make any money
out of their farm anyway.
Rose!
My name is Dougal Campbell, I'm a farmer and grazier.
As a farmer, I totally understand
PETA wants to do the right thing.
In their idea, they think they're doing the right thing.
But in actual fact, they've done an incredible
amount of damage,
to how people percieve us,
and how the farming community operates.
And what's at stake is the farming community.
Its a livelihood,
not just us as farmers but the whole community.
There's hundreds of thousands of people
who could be enormously affected.
Unfortunately, when you take this stance,
and you vilify an industry,
you're bringing down the whole industry.
You're not bringing down those bad eggs,
you're bringing everyone down to that same level.
It's not in their interest
to be telling you all the truth,
because the truth won't get them donations,
it won't get them airtime,
and more often than not the truth is pretty mundane.
But that doesn't get you column inches
and it doesn't get you things on Four Corners.
The fact that these things were happening in Indonesia,
definitely needed to be brought to light.
You can't sit by and say that any of that footage
was acceptable, because it wasn't.
But any other livestock industry in this country
that didn't look at that as a wake-up call,
and start looking at their own practices,
is behind the times.
And they will suffer the same fate, unfortunately.
As much as we would like to be able to sit down
and discuss the issues,
without having those eye-catching campaigns
the reality of it is
that we do need to raise awareness
and these campaigns do exactly that.
We don't say all men are bastards
because some abuse women.
We don't do that.
and we can't do that in the animal rights industry.
it's not fair.
My name is Sophie Love,
I'm a writer, farmer and marketer from NSW.
I do understand
the vegan take on life
because I was a vegan for over 20 years.
I think PETA is relaly badly named.
They seem to be vegans against anyone
who eats meat, uses meat, kills animals
or uses them for fleece or flesh or eggs or whatever.
Vegans who sit on their high horse
and 'I'm holider than thou because I don't
use any animal products'.
I think they're so disconnected
from where their food and their clothes come from
There is a disconnection.
If you live in Sydney, why would you need to come bush?
Why would they need to understand
how their steak gets on the table?
How their lamb chop gets on the table.
or how their bread gets into the kitchen?
How would they need to understand?
As long as they get it.
For most people who are carnivores,
they go into a supermarket,
they see banks of refrigerated food,
that they have no idea where it has come from.
Where was it killed, how humanely was it killed,
and yet when PETA or Animals Australia
do the 'oh my goodness, the terrible abuses
in abbatoirs in Indonesia'
those same people, who have no idea
where their food has come from in Australia,
jump up and down and demand that
a trade be shut down.
There is no humane way to slaughter animals
used for food, and unfortunately
this is a market industry for financial gain
and it's the animals who suffer as a result.
It was so provocative.
to say, 'here's the rest of your wool coat',
It was just a blatant lie.
that is being propogated as the truth.
about an industry.
Some of the information that is put forward
in some of these campaigns,
there is little doubt that it is misleading and deceptive
by reference to the Australian Consumer law.
And if someone wanted to take issue with that
and commence an action,
they would be able to.
Well PETA obviously is very sure
of the information we put forward.
The allegations made were very serious.
As the RSPCA did in fact confirm.
PETA was actually contacted by the
Shearing Contractor's Association of Australia
and they did ask us for advice on
what we thought they could do to improve conditions
for sheep.
We advised that compulsory drug testing for shearers
and also surveillance cameras present
in all sheds.
These have not been measures that
have been introduced by the industry.
I think drug testing shearers is a fantastic idea.
I think drug testing drivers is a great idea.
None of us should be doing anything that we do
while we're high on drugs.
Rather than having cameras isn't it better that we have
an industry wide agreement that
there is zero tolerance
for any form of animal abuse?
Wouldn't that be the best case outcome?
With regards to PETA, is I think that their thoughts
on the wool industry is unrealistic,
and I think that they are sending a false message
to the general public.
We're not out there to do any harm to anybody
we're just trying to do our job and
feed and clothe the community
and make a living. Try and make a living, anyway.
I'd love PETA to come on in an honest way
and have a look at what we do.
Unfortunately when you attack one industry,
like the wool industry,
you'll get collateral damage.
And there are others in the supply chain
who will be affected.
for instance, wool classers,
real estate agents, stock and station agents,
and people in these small communities
that are supported by the wool industry.
These animals are not ours to use.
They're not ours to use for financial gain,
they're not ours to exploit,
and they're certainly not ours to abuse.
As long as animals are being abused for their wool,
the campaign will not be over.