What happened in Australia after airing of another controversial documentary?

An instructive case when considering the potential fallout from the airing of Panorama might be the Australian documentary 'The Final Race', which was shown by ABC during its 7.30 current affairs slot in October 2019.

The programme showed distressing scenes of horse slaughter at a Queensland premises and led to a huge amount of debate across general media, having aired at an emotive time just before the Melbourne Cup.

Chronologically, one of the first concrete results was a series of guilty pleas made by three abattoir employees in cases of animal cruelty brought by the Queensland authorities, leading to substantial fines in each case.

The Queensland government also conducted an independent inquiry, led by retired judge Terry Martin, which made 55 individual recommendations and led to the adoption of new oversight measures for abattoirs and knackeries.

At a national political level a number of changes have been made to existing animal welfare guidelines, while a project is being studied for a national register to improve traceability across the entire horse population.

Within the sport, the Thoroughbred Breeders Association established a welfare working group which included representation from the RSPCA, while a number of projects for rehoming and retraining of racehorses were revamped including Racing Victoria's Off The Track and Team Thoroughbred in New South Wales.

Read more on this subject . . .

Welfare chief condemns abattoir practices shown in Panorama documentary

Care for a racehorse throughout their life has never been a higher priority

ANZ Bloodstock: Jo McKinnon on the realities of rehoming racehorses

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