New MP: Don’t call them ‘pets’
Animal Justice MP Andy Meddick’s agenda for first term
NEW Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick says household animals should be referred to as “companion animals” — not pets — “because they have equal rights to us”.
The micro party candidate from Torquay will be officially sworn into Victorian Parliament’s Upper House tomorrow.
Mr Meddick, who was elected to the Legislative Council with 2.71 per cent of primary votes, thanks to complex preference deals, says household animals should have the same rights as humans.
“When we start to call animals pets, it means that they can be mistreated because it implies they’re lesser than us,” he said.
Speaking of his two rescue dogs and two rescue cats, he said: “We welcome the animals into our home and treat them like family and we give them all the same rights that we have.
“If we change the vernacular about how we describe animals, then some people may even make a subconscious change in the way they treat animals.”
While Mr Meddick, a scaffolder, will not seek to legislate calling pets “companion animals”, he and the Animal Justice Party encourage people to take their lead.
“It’s definitely our policy within the party and that’s how we refer to animals, and we would love it to be the case that more people referred to companion animals,” he said.
Mr Meddick will be one of 11 crossbenchers to hold the bal- ance of power in the newly formed Upper House.
He said his first legislative “cab off the rank” would be introducing a Bill banning duck shooting, which he hoped to introduce when parliament resumed in February.
“The moral argument is that it must go and there is no economic argument for it. Less than 0.4 per cent of the population supports it,” he said.
“The only economic benefit is for petrol station owners because the shooters fill up their cars on the way to go shooting.
“I expect to have to do lot of work but I’m willing to work with anybody to get it done.”
Also on his agenda are banning jumps racing, 1080 poison, animal circuses and rodeos, the establishment of an independent Office of Animal Welfare and shutting down the greyhound racing industry.
Mr Meddick said his electoral win had started to seem more real in the past week as he dealt with official parliamentary paperwork.
Mr Meddick will join three members of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, two Liberal Democrats and one member each from Transport Matters, the Greens, Sustainable Australia and the Shooters and Fishers Party and Fiona Patten on the crossbench.