Brad King’s farm rescue sanctuary north of Brisbane had three new residents on Monday night.

The lambs had been handed over to animal rights activists at Carey Bros abattoir in Yagan, about 200km south-east of Brisbane, in the early hours of the morning, on condition that the activists unchain themselves from abattoir equipment.

King went along to act as media spokesman. He wasn’t aware that any animals would be handed over until the activists came out and “had a frantic moment trying to work out what they were going to do with them”.

The protest followed the release of video by the animal rights website Aussie Farms, which purported to show inhumane practices at the abattoir.

It was part of a national day of action in which 40 people were arrested at protests that closed down Flinders Street in Melbourne and blockaded the city’s aquarium.

The protests sparked a national debate about the idea of veganism itself, which is increasingly becoming mainstream, with some avowed vegans distancing themselves from extremist activism and devoted meat eaters tweeting photos of their steak.

On Wednesday the attorney general, Christian Porter, announced that if the Coalition won the upcoming federal election any use of an online platform to incite criminal trespass onto agricultural land or an agricultural business with the intent of causing commercial damage would be illegal. Those breaching the proposed new law would face jail time.

It is, depending on your perspective, either a gross government overreach that breaches fundamental rights of protest and political communication, or a welcome and overdue measure to protect “besieged” farmers who have been “invaded” by “radical extremists” since the Aussie Farms website launched its public farm database in January.

The latter perspective is from the National Farmers’ Federation, which says publishing addresses and contact details of Australian farms and processing facilities violates the privacy of businesses that comply with Australian laws and standards.

“We haven’t got an issue with people having choices and having the right to consume whatever they want,” the NFF chief executive, Tony Mahar, tells Guardian Australia. “This is not a farmer versus vegan issue … this is people breaking and entering and secretly invading peoples’ farms in a malicious and invasive way, that is what we have an objection to.”

The protests that followed the website’s launch have had a negative effect on businesses. On Sunday the Gippy Goat Cafe, run by goat farmers in Gippsland in Victoria, announced it was closing down after “nearly four months of constant harassment, vile statements and threats from the abusive vegan activists”.

“We have personally been subjected to an appalling stream of threats of extreme violence against ourselves, our family, our staff and even their families,” the cafe’s owner, John Gommans, said in a Facebook post. “Our staff have been subjected to daily threats and harassment by phone, and we cannot in good conscience ask them to continue working under such a condition.”

On Sunday a Queensland dairy farmer released footage of activists filming on their property, an interaction that ended with a cow getting tangled up in a fence. The NFF warned its members of upcoming protests and instructed them to begin filming the activists, just as they were being filmed.

Theresa Sfetkidis is one of the owners of Luv-a-duck, a duck abattoir in western Victoria that processes about 20,000 birds a day.

I don’t think places that engage in animal cruelty have a right to secrecy Chris Delforce, Aussie Farms spokesman

She was on site when activists targeted the abattoir in Nhill late last year and says she is still upset to think about the stress the 150 staff were placed under when 60 activists filled the marshalling yard and began retrieving live ducks from the holding crates.

“They weren’t there to negotiate, to talk,” she says. “They were there just to get negative footage, to antagonise our people.”

The group removed 19 ducks from the crates and placed them in half-shell pools. They remained on site until police arrived and began to arrest those who refused to leave and the group took off, “running through the fields with these poor ducks under their arms”.

“I still wonder what they did with 19 ducks,” Sfetkidis says. “They can’t put them in the backyard in Prahran.”

Chief executive Daryl Bussell says the company has a “very good” relationship with animal welfare groups such as the RSPCA, but characterises those associated with the recent spate of protests as the “radical extreme”.

“They basically want us to shut down our operations and walk away from it and that really doesn’t give you any negotiation ability with them,” he says.

That is, essentially, what those associated with Aussie Farms want. Spokesman Chris Delforce, who also directed the documentary Dominion for which Monday’s Flinders Street protest served as advertising, says practices that are legal in Australia are nevertheless horrifically cruel.

“None of these animals want to be killed,” he says.

He says the decision to publish contact information alongside recordings from agricultural businesses followed years of attempts to get the authorities to respond through conventional means, by providing video evidence and making formal complaints and demands for transparency. They received little response.

“These farms and these slaughterhouses that are listed on this map have been operating in pretty much total secrecy without public awareness or scrutiny for a long time and I don’t think places that engage in animal cruelty have a right to secrecy,” he says.

Animal rights protesters block a major Melbourne intersection during Monday’s national day of action. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Delforce says the protests have been peaceful, and safety and privacy concerns raised by farmers are “making it about farmers versus vegans instead of about what’s happening to animals, which is the conversation we need to be having”.

That the bulk of the activities that have been filmed are legal and comply with Australian standards is, he says, the point of the exercise.

“To show what is actually standard, the everyday reality that the industry is so proud of,” he says. “They are saying that we are leading the world in animal welfare practices and yet they are not willing to show people what that actually looks like.”

Transparency in supply chains is also a concern for the RSPCA, which has repeatedly raised the issue with state and federal regulators.

The new laws announced by Porter could potentially affect the RSPCA or Animals Australia, which have traditionally contributed to the development of animal welfare policies. Porter said the proposed laws would include “complete carve-outs for journalistic reporting and for whistleblowing”, but the extent of that protection won’t be known until the laws are drafted.

Many animal rights campaigners, like King, say they do not support Aussie Farm’s methods but do support their message. King is now in the same position as farmers who have been targeted: his sanctuary is open to the public and has received threats of reprisal.

“If you feel like people are going to come on your farm and harm your animals then I completely understand that, because that’s where I am right now,” he says. “But I certainly don’t know anybody in the movement to try to make a better world for animals that is going to be terrorising and trying to kill animals. We are getting death threats. I just feel like the anger and the hatred coming back from the other side is rather more.”

Hatred of vegans, always a popular topic online, has coloured much of the public reaction to the protests. Vegans adopt the diet for a variety of reasons, and many joined in the criticism, saying the campaign was “not helpful” because it allowed legitimate concerns about high-intensity agriculture to be dismissed as the purview of law-breaking radicals.

“Society has totally disconnected meat in the supermarket or restaurant from animals on a farm, so I do hope in a way that these protests can expose the reality of farming to more people,” Beth Marsden says. She grew up on a beef farm, but has been vegan for five years. She supports on-farm protests where necessary, but says she is also “frustrated” by parts of the vegan movement.

It’s a frustration shared by the Melbourne academic Joshua Badge, who says he is usually opposed to the type of “wedge politics” at play in hardline vegan groups. “That being said, we are still talking about it days later.”

Delforce plans to keep Australia talking. The group is planning more protests in the coming weeks, undeterred by attempts to shut it down through the privacy commissioner and the charities commissioner.

Farmers, who Mahar says have had an “anxious week” awaiting further “attacks”, are also prepared to step up their counter-campaign.