The following is a guest post by Jason Whittaker, a vegan chef and author of the new book, How to Stop Eating Pork and Beef in Australia.
It is not a new story, but there has been an ongoing push for veganism in Australia for some time.
The first national campaigns for vegan foods were introduced in 2005 and are still very much alive.
There have been a lot of good, grassroots campaigns for the past decade or so, and some of the best examples are the Meatless Monday campaigns.
These campaigns have been run by a number of food organisations including the Food Institute, the Meat & Milk Council, the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Vegan Society of Australia.
There are some great books that are based on the Meat-Free Monday campaigns, including a recent book from the UK based on this campaign by the Vegan Times.
In the United States, there have been other national campaigns and national campaigns around the globe, and there have also been many national and international campaigns about other vegan issues, such as dairy and egg-free and meat-free.
All of these campaigns are important, but what is missing from this national campaign?
I have a feeling it is the lack of awareness about the issue of vegans in Australia and the lack in support from the mainstream media and the mainstream political parties.
This lack of support is probably most apparent in the mainstream and mainstream political party politics.
If you look at the list of political parties, you will find that in all but a few, the Vegans Party and the Greens are not on the ballot paper.
As far as I can tell, the Vegan Party does not even appear on the Liberal Party’s list of MPs, and the Vegastream does not appear on any of the Labor Party’s lists of MPs.
What is worse, the vegan movement is not even represented in the Australian media, at least not in a mainstream way.
For example, in the last week, the Daily Telegraph has published an article on veganism that is almost completely devoid of facts and commentary.
And the Australian Greens’ website does not mention the word vegan at all.
But what is even worse, this lack of vegan awareness in the media is only the tip of the iceberg.
So what is the real reason why vegans are not represented in Australian politics?
What I found out was that many vegans have a very low level of support from mainstream politicians.
In particular, the media, the Liberal, Labor and National Parties, the Greens, the New South Wales and Queensland parties and even the Victorian State Parliaments have not included the word vegans on their pages.
While some of these mainstream politicians are not shy about their support of veganism, the mainstream mainstream media also seems to be very reluctant to include vegans and vegans-only policies in its coverage.
When the Vegan World Congress was held in Melbourne, in 2015, the only time that the word Vegan was mentioned in the programme was in the first sentence.
And while this did not sit well with some vegans, there was not a single comment on the issue.
Why is this?
This is because most mainstream politicians do not care about vegans.
They care more about protecting their political careers.
For example: In 2016, the Federal Government passed legislation to ensure that all new businesses would have to provide a vegan menu.
This legislation, which was introduced by the Federal Member for Sydney, Senator Dio Wang, did not get passed by Parliament.
That is because it was opposed by many vegans.
However, in order to appease the dairy and meat industries, the Government changed the definition of what a ‘vegan’ was and included it in its legislation.
So the only vegans that had any representation in Parliament were the dairy industry lobbyists and the meat industry lobbyists.
What is the solution?
I want to be clear that I am not advocating a boycott of the dairy, meat or dairy industry.
I am not saying that there is no ethical meat industry in Australia, or no ethical dairy industry in the world.
But for vegans to be included on the list for inclusion on the Food Standards Australia (FSA) website, it needs to include all vegans from all walks of life.
We are not advocating for a boycott.
We are not asking for the dairy or meat industry to stop working with us.
However, the list needs to reflect the diversity of the vegastream in Australia as well as include veg-allies.
If we don’t include vegs from all parts of Australia, we can expect a lot less support from major parties and mainstream media.
The Vegan Society is also working on a Vegan-only website, and will be launching a vegan-only product this year.
These two projects are both important steps in the right direction