Animal Activists Hit Back at Defamatory Comments by Pork Boss

In response to defamatory and unfounded comments made by Australian Pork Limited (APL)’s CEO Andrew Spencer on the ABC Landline program yesterday, animal activists have vowed to expose an 18th Australian piggery tonight.

The organisation behind the recent publishing of cruelty footage, Aussie Farms, was not approached by ABC for comment. Spokesperson Chris Delforce said, “The fact is, APL is scared. For the first time, consumers are able to find out the truth about the Australian pig farming industry, simply by going to our website aussiepigs.com where they can view footage and photographs of animal cruelty from 17 Australian piggeries and one pig slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse, Corowa, is the largest in the country, and until we exposed it a few weeks ago, people had no idea how millions of pigs were suffering inside slaughterhouse gas chambers. Similarly, Wally Perenc would still be bludgeoning pigs to death at his piggery outside of Canberra had we not publicly exposed him.”

“These are just two of the secrets APL is trying so desperately to hide. People are seeing through the spin. Their insistence on promoting ‘ag-gag’ laws for harsher punishment of those who reveal animal abuse, rather than focusing on stopping the abuse, really says a lot about how they conduct their business and how they rely on a total lack of transparency.”

“For Mr Spencer to compare the filming and publishing of animal cruelty with domestic break-ins is nothing short of ridiculous; animal activists have never had any interest in the personal lives, families or homes of animal abusers, only the abuse they conduct. Consumers have every right to know what happens inside these factories where tens of thousands of animals are suffering unseen every day. Furthermore, there is absolutely no evidence to back his claims that activists ‘move dead piglets to set up shots’ or ‘doctor audio’. It seems his only response to the cruelty revealed in his industry is to make up blatant lies and hope the Australian public is stupid enough to believe him, and there’s only so many times he can publicly undermine the intelligence of his customers before they have enough of it.”

“It’s disappointing, also, that ABC did not bother to come to us for comment before airing the story, instead choosing to publish his accusations without question or validation. Certainly we will be seeking legal advice in response to the behaviour of both the ABC and APL, though we have to accept that as an organisation run entirely by volunteers with very limited resources, we will always lack the hold over the mainstream media enjoyed by APL.”

The footage and photos of piggery #18 will be uploaded to the www.aussepigs.com website tonight.