Purpose:

The Act aims to promote the responsible care and use of animals and to protect animals from cruelty.

Objectives:

• Promote the responsible care and use of animals.
• Provide standards for animal care and use that balance animal welfare with human livelihood interests, considering scientific advancements and community expectations.
• Protect animals from unjustifiable, unnecessary, or unreasonable pain.
• Ensure the accountable, open, and responsible use of animals for scientific purposes.
• Provide for regulations about codes of practice for animal welfare.
• Allow regulations to require compliance with codes of practice.
• Impose a duty of care on persons in charge of animals.
• Prohibit certain conduct in relation to animals.
• Require compliance with the scientific use code for animals used for scientific purposes.
• Provide for the registration of certain users of animals for scientific purposes.
• Provide for the appointment of authorised officers to monitor compliance with compulsory code requirements and the scientific use code.
• Provide for the appointment of inspectors to investigate and enforce the Act.
• Allow the Minister to establish an animal welfare advisory committee or another body to advise on animal welfare issues.

Key Provisions:

• Codes of Practice: Allows for the making of codes of practice about animal welfare, which may become compulsory code requirements by regulation.
• Duty of Care: Imposes a duty of care on persons in charge of animals, prohibiting its breach which can lead to penalties including imprisonment.
• Cruelty Offences: Prohibits cruel conduct towards animals, including causing unjustifiable pain, beating, abuse, terrifying, tormenting, worrying, overdriving, overriding, overworking, using prescribed electrical devices, inappropriate confinement or transportation, inhumane killing, and unjustifiable injury or overcrowding.
• Prohibited Events: Defines and prohibits participation in and presence at events like bullfights, cockfights, dogfights, coursing, and certain hunting events where animals are likely to suffer pain or be injured/killed.
• Regulated Procedures: Prohibits or restricts certain procedures on dogs (ear cropping, tail docking, debarking operations), cats (claw removal), and cattle/horses (tail docking, spaying, pregnancy testing) unless performed by a veterinary surgeon under specific welfare or nuisance abatement conditions, or by an accredited person for cattle procedures.
• Restrictions on Supplying Animals with Regulated Procedures: Requires a signed veterinary surgeon’s certificate or a pound/shelter certificate when supplying an animal that has undergone certain regulated procedures.
• Prohibited Conduct: Outlaws causing captive animals to be injured/killed by dogs, releasing animals for such purposes, keeping/using animals as a kill or lure for blooding/coursing, transporting dogs unsafely, possessing or using prohibited traps/spurs, laying harmful or poisonous baits, unlawfully allowing animals to injure/kill other animals, possessing or using prohibited restraint devices or nets, and firing or blistering on horses and dogs.
• Scientific Use of Animals: Establishes a registration system for scientific users of animals, mandates compliance with the ‘Australian code for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes’, and prohibits certain tests or uses without specific approval.
• Cattle Procedures Accreditation Schemes: Provides for the approval of schemes that accredit persons to perform specific cattle procedures like spaying and pregnancy testing.
• Livestock Slaughter Facilities Obligations: Requires installation, maintenance, and operation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment at specific monitoring points in livestock slaughter facilities, displaying signage, proper recording storage, and notification to the chief executive of horse arrivals.
• Monitoring and Enforcement: Provides for the appointment and powers of authorised officers for monitoring compliance and inspectors for investigation and enforcement, including powers of entry, seizure, and the ability to issue animal welfare directions or destroy animals in certain circumstances.

Evidence of Compliance Requirements For Agricultural Organisations:

• Duty of Care (Section 17):
  • Action: Take reasonable steps to provide the animal’s needs appropriately (food and water, accommodation/living conditions, display normal behaviour, treatment of disease/injury).
  • Action: Ensure any handling (confinement or transportation) is appropriate.
  • Measurement Standard: Appropriateness is decided with regard to the species, environment, circumstances of the animal, and steps a reasonable person in similar circumstances would take.
• Compliance with Codes of Practice (Section 15, 40):
  • Action: Comply with compulsory code requirements as prescribed by regulation.
  • Action: If a code of practice or the scientific use code states requirements for how an act (or omission) may be carried out, the requirements must be complied with.
  • Action: If code provisions are incomplete, comply with any duty of care owed to each animal involved.
• Regulated Procedures - Spaying Cattle (Section 27A):
  • Action: If spaying cattle using the Willis dropped-ovary technique, the procedure must be performed by a veterinary surgeon or a person accredited under an approved cattle procedures accreditation scheme.
  • Evidence: Accreditation document from an approved cattle procedures accreditation scheme.
  • Action: Do not use vaginal spreaders to spay cattle that have not given birth.
• Regulated Procedures - Pregnancy Testing in Cattle (Section 27B):
  • Action: Rectal palpation or transrectal ultrasound for pregnancy testing in cattle must be performed by a veterinary surgeon, a person accredited under an approved cattle procedures accreditation scheme, or without fee or reward.
  • Evidence: Accreditation document from an approved cattle procedures accreditation scheme.
• Regulated Procedures - Tail Docking of Cattle or Horse (Section 27):
  • Action: Tail docking must only be performed by a veterinary surgeon who reasonably considers it is in the animal’s welfare interests.
• Restriction on Supplying Animals with Regulated Procedures (Section 29, 29A):
  • Documentation: When supplying a dog (debarked, cropped ear, docked tail) or cat (claw removed) or cattle/horse (docked tail) that has undergone a regulated procedure, the supplier must provide a signed veterinary surgeon’s certificate stating the operation was performed in the animal’s welfare interests.
  • Documentation: If a pound or animal shelter takes possession of such an animal without a veterinary certificate, they must provide a certificate stating the procedure was performed before they took possession.
  • Documentation: On-suppliers must provide the original veterinary surgeon’s certificate or the pound/shelter certificate to the next person supplied.
  • Record-keeping: The person supplied the animal must keep the certificate while in charge of the animal.
  • Inspection/Audit: The person supplied the animal must make the certificate available for inspection by an inspector if required.
• Firing or Blistering on Horses (Section 37C):
  • Action: Do not apply extreme heat or cold, or acid or another caustic chemical, to the leg of a horse (or dog) with the intention of causing tissue damage or developing scar tissue around ligaments or tendons.
• Killing an animal under Aboriginal tradition, Island custom or native title (Section 41A):
  • Action: The act must be done in a way that causes the animal as little pain as is reasonable.
• Euthanasing sick or injured animals by veterinary surgeons (Section 41B):
  • Action: Euthanasia must be done in the belief the animal was diseased/injured/poor condition, that it would be cruel to keep it alive.
  • Action: The act must be done in a humane way.
  • Action: Veterinary surgeon must take reasonable steps to identify and contact the person in charge of the animal before euthanasia (e.g., scanning for microchip, searching registers, checking for other identification like collars or tags).
• Control of Feral or Pest Animals (Section 42):
  • Action: Control must be done in a way that causes the animal as little pain as is reasonable.
  • Action: Control must comply with any conditions prescribed under a regulation.
• Livestock Slaughter Facilities - Closed-Circuit Television Equipment (Section 93T, 93U, 93V, 93W):
  • Action: Owner must install, maintain, and operate closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment at the facility to clearly record movement at specific monitoring points: entrance, unload area, hold area, handling area before slaughter, and slaughter area (restrain, exsanguinate, stun).
  • Measurement Standards: CCTV equipment must meet minimum requirements prescribed by regulation.
  • Maintenance: CCTV equipment must comply with all requirements about maintaining the equipment prescribed by regulation.
  • Recording Requirements: CCTV equipment must be recording at all times when livestock is at the facility.
  • Record-keeping: Owners must store each recording in a secure place in compliance with storage requirements prescribed by regulation.
  • Timeframes: Owners may only erase or destroy a recording 30 days after it is made.
  • Inspection/Audit: Owners must keep recordings available for inspection by an inspector.
  • Reporting/Notification: An inspector may require that the owner not erase or destroy a recording earlier than 1 year and 30 days after it is made, via written notice.
  • Signage: Owner must display signage at the facility to make any person aware that CCTV equipment is installed.
• Livestock Slaughter Facilities - Notification (Section 93Z):
  • Reporting/Notification: Owner must give the chief executive notice, in the approved form, of the arrival of any horse at the facility no later than 2 business days before the horse arrives.
  • Timeframe: If the owner is made aware of the arrival later than 2 business days, the notice must be given as soon as possible after awareness.
• Record Keeping - General (Section 217(2)(g)):
  • Record-keeping: Regulations may prescribe record keeping by a licence or permit holder or a registered person (e.g., scientific users).
  • Accuracy: It is an offence to make a false or misleading entry in any document permitted or required to be kept under the Act (Section 208).
• Inspection and Document Production (Section 168):
  • Inspection/Audit: An inspector may require the production of documents required to be held or kept under the Act, or related to the transportation of live animals, for inspection at a stated reasonable time and place. This implies the need to maintain such documents.

Metadata Keywords:

Animal welfare, Queensland legislation, livestock, animal protection, agricultural compliance, scientific animal use, slaughter facilities, animal cruelty, codes of practice, veterinary procedures.

Publication Information:

Current as at 26 April 2024.

Agricultural Industry Alignment:

Beef & Veal, Chicken, Dairy, Eggs, Fisheries, Pig.

Date Added to database:

This document was parsed and added to the database on 25-07-2025

URL:

https://www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/pdf/inforce/current/act-2001-064 →