Vegan activists dump dead piglets outside Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan's office in protest of 'filthy and cruel conditions'

Dozens of protesters from the Farm Transparency Project attended the protest, laying out the dead piglets near the entrance of the Premier’s office. The carcasses were placed down on a white sheet alongside flowers and photos of the farms where they were found.

Tuesday’s protest was organised to coincide with the release of covertly filmed footage obtained by the activist group, showing conditions in 20 piggeries across the state.

The graphic footage appears to show pigs packed together in close confinement, some looking sick and dying, while others are shown alongside dead pigs, some of which show signs of cannibalisation.

The protest group said the 20 piglets they laid outside the Premier’s office had died from “malnutrition, illness or scavenging” or had been killed by farm workers for being too small or weak to be worth feeding.

At the end of last year, the Allan government agreed to all but two of the recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry into pig welfare in Victoria, but the protest group has accused the government of failing to act despite “countless damning investigations spanning more than a decade”.

"Last month, the Victorian government officially responded to the parliamentary inquiry into pig welfare, which recommended an end to some of the most barbaric practices still used in the majority of Victorian piggeries,” Farm Transparency Project executive director, Chris Delforce said.

“These changes would have been the absolute bare-minimum the government could have committed to, in order to at least give an appearance of taking animal welfare seriously and standing up to the pig slaughter industry."

In its submission to the parliamentary inquiry, Australian Pork Ltd (APL) claimed the nation’s pig industry was a “global leader in pig welfare”.

“Despite its relatively small size, the Australian pork industry prides itself on world leading animal welfare standards and biosecurity. Care for our pigs is at the heart of everything the Australian pork industry does,” the APL's submission states.

The National Farmers Federation also defended the pork industry, writing in its own submission that it was “a crucial industry not just to regional communities but to the Australian economy” and noting that it generates nearly $6 billion in economic value and supports over 35,000 jobs.

“The Australian pork industry similarly demonstrates this unwavering commitment to welfare outcomes within its industry. Pork producers operate under world-leading production & welfare standards and regulatory frameworks, both on-farm and throughout their value chain,” the National Farmers Federation said.

But the Farm Transparency Project head claimed the government ought to move to urgently phase out the industry

"The Allan government opted to ignore the overwhelming evidence presented to it that this is an industry that is rotten to its core, utterly dependent on abuse and secrecy, and beyond redemption; an industry that must be urgently phased out,” he said.

The National Farmers Federation had also raised concerns over activists taking covert recordings, such as the ones released by the Farm Transparency Project, branding them “extreme” actions which constituted “intimidating trespass and occupation of private homes and businesses".

But Mr Delforce claimed the actions of activists who had filmed the footage was necessary because the government had failed to act.

"The reality is, no one wants to have to illegally enter a factory pig farm and document the suffering of thousands of pigs,” he said.

“People do this because time and time again, the worst atrocities of these industries have only been exposed by ordinary people risking their safety and liberty to show the reality of commercial farming to the public."