What it does
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW) establishes a comprehensive framework to criminalise acts and omissions that cause unreasonable, unnecessary or unjustifiable pain, suffering or distress to animals and to impose positive duties on persons in charge of animals. At its core, s 5(1) prohibits any person from committing an act of cruelty upon an animal, while s 5(2) and (3) place ongoing obligations on the person in charge to exercise reasonable care, alleviate pain and provide veterinary treatment where necessary. Section 4(2) supplies an expansive, non-exhaustive definition of cruelty that includes beating, kicking, overloading, overworking, exposing to excessive heat or cold, or inflicting pain. Aggravated cruelty under s 6 is reserved for cases resulting in death, deformity, serious disablement or a condition so severe that it is cruel to keep the animal alive; the section also contains a fallback so that a charge of aggravated cruelty can be reduced to simple cruelty at the election of the court.
Part 2 then particularises a long list of prohibited conduct: carriage or conveyance causing pain (s 7, including the specific ban on multi-deck horse transport and the requirement to secure dogs in open ute trays), failure to provide proper and sufficient food, drink or shelter (s 8, with 24-hour evidentiary presumptions), failure to exercise confined animals (s 9, with species-specific exemptions), unreasonable tethering or tethering of sows or birds (s 10), abandonment (s 11), performance of certain surgical procedures such as tail docking on dogs over six months, ear cropping, devoicing, declawing cats, teeth grinding in sheep or face branding (s 12, with veterinary exceptions and mandatory register-keeping under s 12A), riding or working unfit animals (s 13), failure by drivers to report and alleviate injury to domestic animals (s 14), administration or possession of poison with intent to injure domestic animals (s 15), use or possession of prescribed electrical devices (s 16), possession of sharpened spurs or fighting implements (s 17), conducting, promoting or attending animal baiting, fighting or bull-fights (ss 18, 18A), trap-shooting live animals (s 19), operating game parks (s 19A), coursing or live-baiting with dogs (s 21, with extensive evidentiary aids and a defence for legitimate mustering or sheep-dog trials), firing or tail-nicking horses (ss 21A, 21B), steeplechasing (s 21C), selling severely injured animals except for prompt humane destruction (s 22), setting prescribed or steel-jawed traps (s 23), and failing to include mandatory identification information when advertising racing greyhounds or regulated cats for sale or rehoming (s 23A).