A Voice for Animals

By KATH GANNAWAY
HAVING retired from the dog-eat-dog world of politics, former McEwen MP Fran Bailey is back on the campaign trail as chairperson of Animal Aid’s $26 million Give Them A Voice redevelopment campaign.
Ms Bailey, whose political career spanned 20 years, says she wasn’t looking for a ‘project’ when she accepted an invitation to attend a meeting at the Victorian Animal Aid Trust in Coldstream last year.
“Mentally I walked in thinking I’ll give them 15 or 20 minutes, then I’ll be off,” she says adding she was still sitting around the table hours later, asking more and more questions.
She knew of Animal Aid’s role as a shelter and animal welfare organisation, but not of the innovative programs they had developed that were changing both human and animal lives.
In the last 12 months, Animal Aid has assisted 55 families through pets in domestic violence program.
“The reality is that more than 50 per cent of women who are in abusive relationships don’t leave because of their pets.”
Threats to a family pet are not uncommonly used as a blackmail tool to stop a woman from leaving.
“Animal Aid runs a program where we take their pet, women and children are able to visit, and when they get re-established they are reunited,” Ms Bailey explains.
Young people at risk, the elderly and prisoners are all part of the Animal Aid ethos which says responsible pet ownership delivers wide-ranging social outcomes based on sound research “Young people are assigned diverse duties and learn responsibility and the links also between older people and pets is absolutely extraordinary.
“The thing that differentiates Animal Aid from virtually every other animal welfare organisation is the strong research which shows that older people who have a pet live longer, have better social cohesion, better social connection.”
The program at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre where prisoners learn how to care for and accept responsibility for pets is revolutionary.
Ms Bailey says it was these three aspects of Animal Aid’s work that prompted her to consider taking a leading role.
“I asked myself, do I want to be involved with what they are doing, and can I use my experience and contacts to help Animal Aid achieve what it wants to achieve, which is to develop much better facilities than what they have,” she says.
The answer was yes, although she admits that at first she thought it would take very little of her time.
“I’ve found that Animal Aid is not an organisation with which you can ration time,” she says. It evokes an emotional response.
“I responded in an emotional way, not in an intellectual way … which was a new experience for me to a certain extent.”
In fact, the response was underpinned by a very solid intellectual base that she goes on to list.
Animal Aid has formal agreements with more than 32 government authorities, has developed the emergency response model for bushfires and floods and is training local government officials in the welfare ethos it practices on a daily basis.
There is the commitment of management, staff and volunteers. “One of the things that impressed me enormously is they have over 480 volunteers.”
There is the backing of Bendigo Bank which started with support of the local Wandin-Seville Community Bank branch and has been adopted as a national campaign.
There are the three research-based programs which are proving so successful, and there is the redevelopment project itself.
“Yes, it’s ambitious, but there is no doubt in my mind that it’s needed, and the timing is right. I think the wider community is much more receptive to animal welfare issues than they were five or six years ago.
“The plan we have here will deliver best practice at the highest global standard.”
It starts with the $3million stage one project which is currently underway.
In answer to whether she is in it for the long haul, she laughs.
“Nobody has actually said to me what the long haul is. I’m in it to do a job and I’m not someone who walks away.
“As long as I feel what I’m doing is of value, I’ll be here.”
Visit the campaign website at givethemavoice.org.au. Donations can be made at any Bendigo Bank.