ANIMAL JUSTICE PARTY CONTESTS THE MONARO BY-ELECTION
One of Australia’s most experienced animal advocates, Frankie Seymour, is standing for the Animal Justice Party in the 2022 Monaro by-election.
40 years ago, Frankie served on the Sea Shepherd, saving whales, seals and dolphins. In the decades since, she has fought on behalf of caged hens, monkeys in laboratories, waterbirds, circus animals, dogs and cats, kangaroos, and unjustly persecuted naturalised animals such as brumbies.
“The animals and the compassionate people of Monaro have been abandoned by the major parties,” Ms Seymour affirms. “In the middle of a long and terrible drought, when kangaroos were probably at their lowest numbers since European settlement, the NSW government authorised their open slather slaughter across NSW.
“Under the same Orwellian Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, the government also granted free rein for landholders to clear remnant wildlife habitat from their land without any assessment of the impacts on animals or the environment. They authorised the logging of irreplaceable koala habitat and the cruel and counterproductive slaughter of brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park. Meanwhile, they did absolutely nothing to assist the farmers of the Monaro to transition to more sustainable and humane farming practices.”
If elected, Frankie would fight for the repeal of the cynical Biodiversity Conservation Act, and replace it with legislation that actually protects native animals from harm, and also ends the cruel and counterproductive killing of naturalised animals.
“Such legislation also needs to recognise the links between animal agriculture, deforestation and climate change, and the well-demonstrated relationship between animal/wildlife abuse and the last half dozen pandemics that have troubled the human world,” Frankie adds.
A social and environmental scientist by training, Frankie has lived in the Monaro electorate for 36 years. Alongside her voluntary animal work, Frankie spent over 30 years in the Australian Public Service, working for social justice in the (then) Department of Social Security and for environmental protection in the Department of the Environment.
“Environmental science has shown me that neither humans nor other animals can continue to survive on this planet unless we humans stop destroying our ecosystems and wrecking our climate. My personal experience in human welfare and animal welfare have shown me that whenever the wellbeing of humans and the wellbeing of animals seem to be in conflict, both suffer, but when our kinship and shared sentience are recognised, we all benefit.”
Frankie Seymour is the Animal Justice Party candidate for Monaro. The by-election to replace outgoing MP John Barilaro is on 12 February 2022.
24 January 2022
Image: Kosciuszko Brumbies by Michelle J Photography