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Philip Wollen, Australian Philanthropist, Former VP of Citibank, Animals Should Be Off the Menu Debate

by Jennie Richards · Published September 15, 2020 · Updated September 25, 2020

Philip Wollen addresses the St. James Ethics Centre and the Wheeler Centre in Australia a 10-minute debate on May 16, 2012. You can watch the entire debate as well.

Philip Wollen is a former Vice President of Citibank and was a General Manager at Citicorp. He is a prominent Australian philanthropist and member of the animal rights movement. In 2005, he received the Medal of Order for Australia and in 2007 he won the Australian of the Year (Victoria) award. In 2012, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Oxford Centre of Animal Ethics, UK. In 2014, he received the University of Adelaide Distinguished Alumni Award. Wollen became a vegan in his 30s.

Philip Wollen’s main project, Winsome Constance Kindness, is a global initiative whose mission statement is “to promote kindness towards all other living beings and enshrine it as a recognizable trait in the Australian character and culture.” The initiative emphasizes ethics, compassion and cooperation, and opposes cruelty to humans and non-human animals. In 2006, it had initiatives in 34 countries and is growing. Wollen also conducts intervention programs to rescue abused animals and funds outreach programs that promote animal welfare and abstinence.

Video Length: 10:14 Minutes

Watch the entire debate with six presentations

What You Can Do

Go Vegan. Stop eating meat, dairy and eggs. Do it for them, do it for you, do it for our planet, do it for the starving, do what’s right, just, moral and ethical.
Get involved in the animal rights movement. As Philip Wollen says, “Now that you know the truth you can no longer hide. Now that you know the truth, you can no longer ignore the suffering of animals. You must get involved. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”

Quotes From His Debate

“I discovered when we suffer we suffer as equals, and in their capacity to suffer—a dog is a pig—is a bear—is a boy.”

“Billions of little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.”

“We torture and kill 2 billion sentient living beings every week!”

“It’s a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions to do what we’re doing.”

“Victor Hugo said there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Animal rights today is now the greatest social justice issue since the abolition of slavery.”

“There are now over 600 million vegetarians in this world, bigger than the U.S., England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand all put together. If we were one nation, we would be bigger than the 27 nations of the European Union.”

“Meat kills animals, kills us, and it’s killing our economies.”

“Cornell University and Harvard doctors say the optimal amount of meat in a healthy human diet is precisely—zero.”

“Nations will be going to war for water. Underground aquifers that took millions of years to build are now going dry. And it takes 50,000 liters of precious drinking water to make one kilo of beef.”

“Today 1 billion people are hungry; 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10 percent, will feed 100 million people, and eliminating meat altogether will feed the entire world and end starvation.”

“Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is 50 percent more than all the transportation in the world.”

“Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed the grain to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime?”

“Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?”

“The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.”

“If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into the Bronze Age. But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry. The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it.”

“George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.”

“This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever. The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.”

“This cruel industry will only end because we run out of excuses.”

“Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth.”

“And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so much money they wouldn’t even bother counting it.”

“Governments will love us. New industries would emerge and flourish. Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would disappear.”

“Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.”

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we wouldn’t need this debate. I believe another world is possible.”

“So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:

Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?

I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.”

“On a quiet night, I can hear her breathing. Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers. Please vote tonight for those who have no voice.”