Animal activists the last straw for pig farmer near Yass

After his intensive pig farm was secretly photographed, with details published on the Aussie Farms website, Mr Howard sold the pigs and closed the ageing operation to focus only on sheep and cattle with his children.

"I didn't like it one bit. It was very invasive," Mr Howard said of the action by activists in 2012. "It really affects you socially because you're thinking are you going to be entered at night."

Mr Howard says his pigs were kept in pens and stalls, but maintains the footage wasn't a true reflection of the way the piggery was run. Nevertheless, it marked the end for him and on Monday he welcomed new laws aimed at activists who trespass on farms or who publish details online that "incite" others to trespass.

"The implementation is what's going to make it worthwhile or not, if it takes four years to get them before court and then they're fined $1, it's just not fair," he said.

The federal and NSW governments are hitting animal activists with a dual legal truncheon, with NSW imposing new instant fines of $1000 for farm trespass from August 1, and fines of $220,000 if farms have a biosecurity plan in place and visitors don't comply by it.

NSW deputy premier John Barilaro hit out at activities as "virtue-signalling thugs", "vigilantes" and "domestic terrorists". Mr Barilaro said the NSW laws would be the harshest in the country, but he was looking at going further to introduce potential jail time as well.

At the same time Morrison government plans to make it an offence punishable by jail to "incite" trespass through a website, but those laws are yet to pass the Senate, which has sent them to an inquiry.

The federal laws are aimed at Aussie Farms, a website that records the location of animal farms around the country, including egg and chicken farms, sheep farms and piggeries in and around Canberra, and which allows people to upload information about animal welfare on each farm.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the website enabled and encouraged trespass by sharing farmers' information online.

On Monday, he re-introduced legislation that makes it an offence to use the internet to "publish or otherwise distribute material with the intention to incite another person to trespass on agricultural land", punishable by a year in jail - or five years if someone "posts on social media intending that other people pull down fences on a farm, or steal livestock".

The federal laws would also cover fish farms, sale yards, abattoirs, and crop, fruit and vegetable farmers, and the offence would stand whether or not anyone actually trespass. Mr Porter said the inclusion of a disclaimer on a website would not of itself be enough.

Aussie Farms added a disclaimer to its website recently saying it did not condone or encourage the use of the site for trespass, but director Chris Delforce said other than that it would make no change to the site.

The work of activists had revealed "countless atrocities that would otherwise still be an industry secret", including live-baiting in the greyhound industry, the maceration of live male chicks, the use of carbon dioxide in pig slaughterhouses, and "repeated failure" of stunning methods in slaughterhouses.

Factory farms were not biosecure environments, but were plagued by pest animals and disease, and to use biosecurity as an excuse to prevent exposure was absurd, he said.

"Were these industries transparent and honest about what happens inside these facilities, there'd be no need for anyone to take it upon themselves to capture evidence of it," he said.

Gold Creek Station sheep farmer Craig Starr said he would prefer politicians and public servants to take a step back and leave people alone.

"We all get a bit carried away. If something happens, let's just deal with it," he said.

He cared about his animals, and understood people getting upset about caged chickens or starving or abused animals.

He didn't know his farm was marked on the website, and it didn't worry him. "You go for a drive, there's a farm. You don't need a website to find a farm," he said.

"... It won't affect me. If someone comes trespassing on my place I think I have the people skills to deal with it. I'm not going to sue someone for $200,000."

Mr Porter said journalists would be exempt if they publish locations of farms in the public interest. But Labor's Mark Dreyfus said while Labor supported protections for farmers from trespass, theft and damage, the party was concerned about its impact on freedom of the press, on legitimate whistleblowers, on freedom of political communications, on legitimate protest actions - including by farmers themselves, and potentially on Native Title holders. Labor would decide its position after the inquiry reported on September 6.

The political muscle-flexing came as six activists who pleaded guilty to trespass in Goulburn after protest action at an abattoir this year won their appeals against the sentences. The six originally faced sentences including fines and compensation for police and the abattoir, but on Monday the court quashed the fines and compensation, and, according to Tara Ward, executive director of the Animal Defenders Office, which represented the group, also recorded no conviction, ordering 12-month good behaviour bonds instead.