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WA Animal Welfare Transparency Archive
Section titled “WA Animal Welfare Transparency Archive”A public memory — for those whose suffering is hidden. An archive — against forgetting.
An independent documentation effort to expose the systemic invisibility of farmed animals in Western Australia — and the institutions that obscure it.
This archive began with a single Freedom of Information request. It now serves as a public record, memory structure, and structural critique — focused on the legal invisibility surrounding Designated Inspectors (DIs), the only state-authorised individuals allowed to enter industrial farming facilities.
It archives not only what was revealed, but also what the system was asked, ignored, or structurally refused.
This project is not just about transparency.
It is about the lives whose suffering is systematically erased — and the structures that allow that erasure.
🔍 Site Sections
Section titled “🔍 Site Sections”🗂 FOI Summary
Section titled “🗂 FOI Summary”-
Submitted: 5 April 2025
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Finalised: 30 May 2025
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FOI ID: 52549500734
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Result:
- 1 created document (Facility Inspection Summary)
- Formal Section 26 refusal for outcome data and internal audits
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Next Step:
- Internal Review process commenced (June 2025) after OIC required exhaustion of agency review.
- Awaiting outcome from DPIRD.
📎 Key Files:
- FOI Response – 1 May 2025
- Notice of Decision – 30 May 2025
- Document 1 – Facility Inspection Summary
- Internal Review Acknowledgement – 12 June 2025
Each FOI cycle here is a public test of institutional transparency: every request, every silence, every detour becomes part of the structural record.
❗ Why This Matters
Section titled “❗ Why This Matters”Since 2023, unauthorised filming or entry into animal farming facilities has been criminalised in WA. This leaves Designated Inspectors (DIs) as the sole legal witnesses inside spaces where animals often endure extreme confinement, mutilation, and psychological trauma.
Yet if these inspections are undocumented, their outcomes unreported, and oversight bodies silent, the system is not just blind — it is designed not to see.
What vanishes in this silence is not just institutional data, but the reality of lives endured in cages, crates, and industrial sheds.
Without public records, we do not know if cruelty is prevented — or simply unseen.
⚠️ Key Issues Identified
Section titled “⚠️ Key Issues Identified”- No published data on DI inspections since 2022
- AWAC does not release minutes or recommendations
- DPIRD annual reports omit any reference to DI enforcement
- A dataset was created only after formal FOI pressure
📅 Transparency Timeline
Section titled “📅 Transparency Timeline”| Year | Event | Policy Outcome | Actual Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Animal Welfare Act enacted | Baseline legal framework | DI actions not reported |
| 2015 | Easton Review | Call for transparency & enforcement | Reform acknowledged |
| 2019 | Public conflict escalates | Stronger enforcement pledged | No DI data released |
| 2020 | Independent Review Panel | Oversight & auditing proposed | Recommendations accepted |
| 2022 | AWAC re-established | DI oversight role reaffirmed | No outputs published |
| 2023 | Trespass Act passed | DIs given expanded entry powers | No inspection data released |
| 2023–24 | DPIRD annual report | Industry-wide stats presented | DI section entirely omitted |
| 2025 | FOI confirms systemic absence | Public learns no DI tracking system exists | Institutional failure verified |
🧾 Full source documents available in Downloads & Resources
This archive exists because systems forget — but we remember.
Animals live, suffer, and die in silence. This site ensures that silence is not total.