Australian Court Sets Dangerous Precedent To Censor Animal Abuse Investigation - Real Media - The View From Below

An Australian court has granted a permanent injunction against the Farm Transparency Project (FTP), a not-for-profit charity dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of farm animals. The injunction was applied for by The Game Meats Company, a slaughterhouse based in Eurobin, Victoria, in an effort to censor reporting on Australia's animal agricultural industry. This article has been amended in order to comply with the restrictions imposed by the injunction.

The Game Meats Company

The Game Meats Company is a four-hour drive from Melbourne. It occupies a low-level, warehouse-like building, made from corrugated iron painted a pale green. There are no windows. A handful of air-conditioning units squat on the roof, and attached to one corner is an orange windsock. A scattering of trees rings the building, fading evidence that this was once all woodland, before trees were felled and concrete laid.

To the rear of the complex and shielded by buildings is a driveway. It is wide and spacious. A pair of boots sits neatly by the cab door of a silver and black articulated lorry – their arrangement is thoughtful. To the left there is a trail of wet blood, twelve to fifteen feet long. It is left unattended, as if irrelevant. The top of the truck is open, filled with a hundred or so freshly killed animal carcasses and discarded internal organs, pale and jelly-like.

The breeze picks up and the windsock flutters lightly. Slaughter creates a stench and it's useful to know which way the wind is blowing if you're trying to remain invisible.

Born Wild, Rounded Up and Slaughtered

Despite occupying a building designed to be unexceptional, the Eurobin facility attracts interest. It is an export accredited multi-species slaughterhouse that is responsible for killing and butchering more than 100,000 deer, emus, ostriches, and predominantly rangeland goats each year.

Rangeland goats, also known as feral goats, live unmanaged in Australia's natural environments, or rangelands, from where they get their name. They are nonconformist, and unlike domesticated breeds they come in a mix of sizes and colours. Their hair is a rowdy assortment of whites and blacks and greys and tans, a beautiful jumble of colour unaltered by the human hand of genetic manipulation. Some are long-haired and shaggy, others short-haired and tidy. They carry a range of fabulous crowns including mohawks, and floppy mops and wing-styled horns and pointed ears. A few carry beards that dribble off their chins, wispy hairs that can reach twelve inches in length. They are wondrously individual characters and generally live their lives without human contact. When they do encounter humans, it's fatal – they are rounded up and sold for slaughter.    

The rangeland goat population is hard to estimate. The last credible study was undertaken in 2020 and focused on New South Wales (Australia's south-eastern state) where rangeland goats are most prevalent. The study estimated there were approximately five million goats living in the state. Alarmingly, three years later Meat and Livestock Australia reported 2 million goats were slaughtered across Australia in 2023 alone, as the country expanded its supply of goat meat to overseas markets. Key buyers of Australian goat meat include the US (27,500 tonnes), South Korea (8,600 tonnes), China (5,100 tonnes) and the Caribbean islands (2,000 tonnes). Just 9% of Australian goat meat is consumed onshore.

Recognising that the annual killing spree was unsustainable, the New South Wales government created the bizarrely named Going Ahead With Goats Project through which it made funds available to help create a farmed production system for goats. 

The Unanswered May 2024 Email

Jason Ollington works at Australia's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF). He is a Veterinary Officer with 27 years of service, an old hand, and is currently Field Operation Manager. He is responsible for 'ensuring inspection and verification programmes are in place' to support export certificates. In the weird world of animal butchery, he is supposed to be – at least mildly – concerned about an animal's welfare during its final living days.

On the morning of May 3^rd 2024, Ollington received an email from FTP. It outlined a series of abuses that took place at The Game Meats Company over a two-week period earlier in the year. The abuses included serious breaches of animal welfare in the restraint, stunning and killing processes, with some of the breaches involving infant goats. The claims were supported by 14 minutes of film recorded by FTP cameras installed inside the slaughterhouse.

The film made distressing viewing. It included footage of goats breaking free of their restraints and running onto the kill floor, goats showing clear signs of consciousness, while having their throats slit and hooves removed, and new-borns being electrocuted after being left in a plastic bucket for an extended period.

Surprisingly, Ollington never acknowledged or responded to the email. On May 17^th 2024, FTP released the footage on their website, and Australian broadcaster Channel 7 reported the breaches. The same day, FTP received an interim injunction requiring them to remove the film from the website and barred them from sharing or showing the footage until a final legal judgement on the matter could be delivered. FTP complied and a hearing date was set for July 2024.

In subsequent reporting it transpired Ollington took the unusual step of forwarding the full complaint and all the associated footage directly to The Game Meats Company 48 hours after receiving it. To date no investigation into the breaches has been undertaken by his department. Ollington remains at DAFF.

The Short Lived Win

The July 2024 hearing lasted six days. There was arguing over the actual period of the filming (was it weeks or months), and The Game Meats Company claimed a permanent injunction was necessary to protect its profits and reputation.

Interestingly, the content of the footage was never refuted. Cruelty and violence had occurred, it occurred repeatedly and formed a pattern of behaviour. The place where trees were felled and concrete laid, the place where a pale green tin shed was erected for the sole purpose of killing was a place of conscious horror. For tens of thousands of living, thinking, feeling beings, who prior to their capture knew only wide horizons and open landscapes, this was their living hell and it was all recorded on film. 

On December 19^th 2024, Justice Snaden delivered his judgement, awarding The Game Meats Company damages of £62,000. However, he determined the company was not entitled to an injunction prohibiting FTP from publishing or sharing the footage as The Game Meats Company held no copyright over the material.  

The win was short lived, with The Game Meats Company filing an appeal at the Full Court, which was heard on August 1^st 2025, and took place before three Justices.

Censoring the Right to Know

On Wednesday August 13^th 2025, the Full Court bewilderingly reversed Justice Snaden's decision and awarded The Game Meats Company a permanent injunction. It ordered FTP to destroy all 2024 footage filmed at the Eurobin facility using covert on-site cameras, and gave copyright ownership of any material filmed on site to The Game Meats Company. In doing so, the Full Court appears to have set a dangerous Australian precedent which effectively prohibits anyone recording commercial activities while on private land, even if those activities seem illegal.

"On matters of law, we respect the court's expertise. But this case has always gone beyond that. The fact that the Game Meats Company has pushed this case through a six-day trial and an appeal in one of the highest courts of Australia, simply to prevent footage from being published which shows their normal business operations, is absolutely condemnable. Now their cowardly actions have led to a wide-reaching legal precedent which will affect press freedoms and the rights of whistle-blowers across the country" commented FTP director, Harley McDonald-Eckersall.

"This trial has always been about the public's right to know what happens to the animals who are bred and killed for food. Today it was confirmed that, in the eyes of the law, the transparency the animal slaughter industry loves to brag about in their marketing campaigns is nothing but a smokescreen, designed to hide their real actions from the public" continued McDonald-Eckersall.

It is anticipated FTP will be ordered to pay The Game Meats Company's full legal costs, which could exceed £250,000. This would be in addition to the £62,000 of damages already awarded. FTP has 28 days to appeal the judgement.

Due to the Full Court's restrictions, we cannot show you the 14-minute video submitted to Jason Ollington and DAFF.

However, in 2024 Georgie Purcell, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, described the footage under Parliamentary privilege. Her description is harrowing: 

This story started with a disclaimer explaining how I was prohibited from sharing certain aspects of The Game Meats Company's operations with you. Be in no doubt – there were clear and repeated abuses of animal welfare caught on film. DAFF's improper behaviour failed the animals, while the Full Court's judgement failed us.  But ultimately this story isn't about humans or the judiciary, it's about the 100,000 deer, emus, ostriches, and rangeland goats that bleed to death in a windowless shed daily. It's about their fear and screams, their pain and panic. We shouldn't need a film to challenge the psychotic nature of a food system that is so corrupt, and corrupting – but until we dismantle speciesism and rid ourselves of a carnivorous diet, we can ill afford to banish FTP and their 14-minute film.   

  -  © 2025 Sul Nowroz  –  Real Media staff writer  –  Insta: @TheAfghanWriter