Humans and Animals

In the Australian press yesterday and today is a major story about a bit of animal cruelty after a video clip posted on a website showed a bloke punching and kicking a kangaroo. The RSPCA are urging the people of Australia to dob these blokes in and promise prosecution and punishment. In Western Australia such animal cruelty is punishable by fines up to $50,000 and five years jail. And rightly so if anyone hurts our national symbol; the one we shoot, eat and cull in great numbers.

Australia is also in the grip of alcohol and drug related bashings of humans. There have been numerous cases of ‘one punch deaths’ at venues in all Australian cities. The Western Australian Government (or at least the one that was in before the recent election) has legislated to bring in harsher ‘one punch’ sentencing to deal with such deaths.

The W.A. Attorney General, Jim McGinty said: that under the new law, it did not matter whether the death was foreseeable or whether the attacker actually intended to kill.

“If the victim dies, the attacker can be held accountable for that death and be liable for up to 10 years’ imprisonment,” Mr McGinty said.

Not a lot more than one could get for cruelty to an animal.