California’s legislative ban on the importation of kangaroo products was due to resume its effect at the end of 2015.  However the commercial kangaroo industry was confident it would convince legislators to permanently lift the ban and allow unimpeded and unchecked importation of kangaroo skins and meat.

On 11 September, the last day for debate on urgent bills,  the industry’s bill to permanently lift the ban failed to pass the Californian Senate, allowing the ban to be reinstated from 1 January 2016.

There is increasing concern about the science that is being cited to justify the continuation of the commercial kangaroo shooting and export industries. 

A brief history:
  • In 1971 California banned the importation of kangaroo products. The (then) three commercially shot kangaroo species were listed as threatened on the US Endangered Species Act in 1974.[1] The US Fish and Wildlife Service banned the importation of those species in the same year after the Australian Government itself banned the export of kangaroo products in 1973 following evidence of serious decline in kangaroos.[2]
Picture
US Fish & Wildlife Service, Amendment to List Red Kangaroos, Western Gray Kangaroo, & Eastern Gray Kangaroo; Federal Register, Vol 39, No 251, 30 Dec 1974
  • Australian kangaroo exporters and government worked for three decades to convince the United States government that commercially shot kangaroos were abundant and management practises sustainable.

  • The US federal ban was lifted in 1995 and trade resumed while the Californian and New York bans were ignored, until animal welfare organisation, VIVA! International Voice for Animals, attempted to enforce the ban on the sale of kangaroo products.[3]
  • California is the world’s largest single market for soccer boots, many of which are made of kangaroo leather.[4] In 2010 it was reported that Adidas was the single largest buyer of kangaroo skins in the world. [5]

  • In 2007 the Californian prohibition on the sale of kangaroo products was overturned, after a coalition of the Kangaroo Industries Association of Australia (KIAA), Adidas and the Australian Government, with Californian-based legislative consultants, convinced  Californian lawmakers that the shooting of millions of kangaroos per year is environmentally and humanely justifiable. Adidas contributed “significant amounts of time and money in guiding the legislative change”. [6]
Picture
Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia. " Job Done". Newsletter Number 49, Nov 2007.
  • Adidas, who lobbied Californian Senator Ron Calderon to sponsor the 2007 legislation lifting the Californian ban, then became one of his donors.  
  • The 2007 enabling legislation was enacted with a three year sunset clause, which expired in December 2010.  Senator Ron Calderon then sponsored a bill representing the same coalition of economic interests allowing a second lifting of the ban in 2010 with an extended five-year sunset clause which ends at the end of 2015. [7]
  • The commercial kangaroo industry ignored the July 2015 deadline to introduce its bill to permanently lift the ban, and sought to “gut and amend” an existing Californian bill  that had passed all the necessary legislative processes. 

  • In the gut and amend "maneuver" a legislator, at the last possible moment before the end of the legislative year, guts the original content of their bill that has passed all necessary transparent legislative reviews and public scrutiny. Its contents are then replaced with a completely different bill that is procedurally treated as having passed the same legislative scrutiny as the original bill. Gut and amends are disallowed by Californian legislative rules, which can be waived by the Rules Committee. The procedure is widely condemned as  "violat[ing] almost every legislative rule" of "normal and open legislative process", and used to "circumvent the rules to enact failed pet projects and special favors".

  • With Senate deadlines for debate looming on 11 September, a ‘gut and amend’ was supposed to disguise the bill’s introduction; remove time to examine increasing concerns about the commercial industry; and force truncated debate on the issue.  Because 'gut and amends' sidestep due and proper legislative processes, they require special permission from the Californian Senate.

  • With no Senator willing to sponsor the bill, freshman Assemblyman Mike Gipson agreed to sponsor the bill.  He inserted it into his gutted existing bill that originally dealt with gambling regulation when he had introduced it earlier in the year, and tabled it as an urgent bill in the last week of the year for debating bills. This was widely condemned as a subversion of due process, especially given serious questions about the status of kangaroos illustrated by the science and data brought to the attention of the relevant Committee over the preceding 12 months.

  • It was reported that Assemblyman Gipson and 13 other Californian lawmakers had received $1,000 payment from the KIAA/Australian Government's lobbyists.

  • In the last hours of the Senate deadline of 11 September, Californian Senators chose to not allow a vote on the contentious bill.

  • The current Sunset Clause allowing imports expired at the end of 2015. The Californian ban on the importation of products made from shot kangaroos came back into effect on 1 January 2016.

  • In Dec 2016 the Californian government’s Fair Political Practices Commission sent a warning letter to the Australian government for violating California's lobbying laws in 2014, by providing undeclared funding to the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia (KIAA) to pay a legal lobbying firm to influence the Californian legislative process to "prevent kangaroo products being banned in California". [9]  The KIAA only filed its lobbying disclosure after questions were asked in the Australian Senate [8].

  • Californian media responded by labelling the world of kangaroo lobbying as "swampy", describing the Australian Government as engaging in ‘unsavoury foreign government interference and industry money to influence with local government decision-making.’ It also noted that  [the FPPC] "opted to issue a warning letter",  "evidently not wanting to create an international incident ..." 
Banner image: 
Male Red Kangaroo: Osphranter rufus (reclassified from Macropos rufus)
.
[1] US Fish & Wildlife Service, Amendment to List Red Kangaroos, Western Gray Kangaroo, and Eastern Gray Kangaroo; Federal Register, Vol 39, No 251,  30 Dec 1974. Available from  <http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/federal_register/fr39.pdf> [17 July 2015]
[2] Parliament of The Commonwealth of Australia,  Kangaroos, Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare report (1988), Chapter 4. Available from < http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/senate/committee/history/animalwelfare_ctte/kangaroos/04ch4.pdf>  [17 July 2015]
[3] Stanford Law School Robert Crown Law Library, Supreme Court of California Resources. Viva! International v. Adidas Opinion 41 CAL. 4TH 929, 162 P.3D 569, 63 CAL. RPTR. 3D 50. Available from <http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/viva-international-v-adidas-33753> [17 July 2015]
[4] Kelly,J California,New York, the World and Kangaroos. RIRDC Feb 2011. Available from <https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/10-220> [17 July 2015]
[5] Foot Boots. Leather boots debate rages in California. 2010. Available from  <https://www.footy-boots.com/kangaroo-leather-ban-in-california-lifted/>  [17 July 2015]
[6] Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia.  Job Done. Newsletter Number 49, Nov 2007.
[7] Kelly,J op cit
[8] Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Trade & Market Access Division. Additional Senate Estimates, Feb 2015. Answer to Question 118 ( Questioner: Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon). Available from <http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/Committees/rrat_ctte/estimates/add_1415/ag/Answers/TMADQoNs110-118.pdf>   [17 July 2015]  or here
[9] State of California Fair Political Practices Commission to Commonwealth of Australia, Warning Letter FPPC Case No.15/1360 (Dec 15, 2016). Available from <http://www.fppc.ca.gov/content/dam/fppc/documents/enf_letter/01-09-17/KangarooIndustryAssociationofAustralia-20151360.pdf> [accessed 17 Jan 2016]