Help vets help pets - Subsidised veterinary care for low-income families.

Pets are family. When people can’t afford veterinary care, there can be either despair or, sadly, rage at vets and their staff. In many cases, the animals end up being surrendered in shelters as families have to make the heartbreaking decision to choose between paying bills and visiting the vet.

For people at or below the median Australian income, the policy will provide capped fee assistance; the target would be $1000 per annum. In addition, desexing would be separately subsidised. Subsidies would also be available for wildlife veterinary services, wildlife carers, rescue groups and animal shelters.

AJP believes healthy and housed animals are better for communities and that preventing suffering and avoiding crisis care is cheaper than late intervention; Veticare is a targeted safety net. We also believe wildlife should receive publicly funded wildlife care to take pressure off vets who currently perform this service for free.

Nationally, there are close to $500 million in subsidies going to animal agriculture (not handouts, but tax breaks and the like). We are subsidising industries which produce both thousands of new cases annually of bowel cancer and more climate heating than coal. A tax on carbon, including methane from ruminants, could produce $100 billion annually. We would need about $120 million in SA for Veticare.