ANZCCART Vivisection Protest, Canberra 2006

September 2006 

Anti vivisection activists from ALACT, ALVIC, ALNSW and New Zealand converged on Canberra for protests against the ANZCCART vivisection conference.

The Australia and New Zealand Council for the "Care" of Animals in Research and Teaching (ANZCCART) is the main industry lobby group promoting vivisection in Australasia. Most of the conference attendees were vivisectors, and government officials some of whom are part of what is described as the 'ethics' committees, a less than impartial body established in 1987 that regulates animal testing.

On their website ANZCCART describe their role as providing "leadership in developing community consensus on ethical, social and scientific issues relating to the use of animals in research and teaching".

Their website also claims to promote humane science, however this is thought to be a crude attempt at portraying themselves as a organisation more interested in the welfare of the animals than in the interest of their sponsors who include the Australian Research Council (ARC), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Royal Society of New Zealand (RSNZ). All these organisations are keen supporters of and offer grants for animal based research.

The annual ANZCCART conferences have been the target for New Zealand activists for many years and now Australian activists are organising campaigns against these conferences as well.

Activists were there to greet the vivisectors with a noisy protest as the conference opened, and again in the evening. Four activists managed to get past security and into the vivisectors cocktail party that evening, making their presence known before being removed by a large number of security guards

On Monday, 4th September, protesters held a march around the city centre before returning to the conference venue for more protests. A final demonstration was held at the Australian National University's John Curtin School of Medical Research where experiments on primates, cats and wallabies are carried out.

Protesting in Garema Place, Civic