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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.

🗂 FOI Summary

FOI 1 – Designated Inspector Records (DPIRD)

Submitted: 5 April 2025
Finalised (Initial Decision): 30 May 2025
FOI ID: 52549500734
Outcome:
- Section 26 refusal: no DI inspection outcomes, audits, or internal reviews found.
- 1 document created post-request: generic checklist template.
Review Stage:
- Internal Review requested: 13 June 2025
- IR Decision (8 July): DPIRD contradicts itself, confirms some reports exist but still refuses access.
- External Review submitted to OIC: 10 July 2025
- OIC accepted complaint under s.65: 17 July 2025 – review ongoing.

FOI 2 – Oversight & Risk Records (DPIRD)

Submitted: 9 July 2025
Focus:
1. AWAC meeting records on DI supervision
2. DPIRD internal risk assessments
3. Current SOPs or policy documents for DI oversight
Status: Acknowledged by agency – pending response or fee estimate.

📎 Key Files:

Each FOI becomes part of a growing structure:
a documented architecture of refusal, contradiction, and public memory.

❗ 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

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

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.