Live Animal Exports: The Animal Suffering Continues
In a move that shows complete disregard for animal welfare and arrogance toward all caring Australians, the Labor Party and the Liberal/ National Party combined today to vote down the two Bills before the House of Representatives seeking to ban the export of live cattle for slaughter. The Government allowed the resumption of live cattle exports even before the vote in Parliament took place and in the full knowledge that there was additional video footage of farm animal atrocities now available.
“This decision continues the appalling record of both Labour and the Coalition on animal welfare in this country”, said AJP President Professor Steve Garlick. “The cold hearts of these politicians are completely impervious to the graphic and sickening evidence of widespread cruelty and abuse in this industry that we have now all witnessed”, he said. Most members did not even bother to turn up for the vote and those from the Labor Party who would have supported the bills through a conscience vote were pulled into line by their party machine.
The Government and the opposition cited economics as their reason for opposing the two bills. The economics argument is completely without foundation. We know the live animal trade industry has taken thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of income away from the domestic chilled meat processing industry in Australia’s rural towns and put it in the private hands of a few large corporates. A restructuring of the meat processing industry away from live exports would require little adjustment and nowhere near that ordinary workers endured when a range of industries where restructured in the 1980s and 1990s in the light of tariff reductions. These people were given labour market assistance to retrain and gain employment in other areas of the economy. The same provisions could apply now if the present government had the boldness and foresight of previous Labor Governments.
“The Gillard Government’s decision to continue live cattle exports, despite the undisputed chilling evidence of sustained animal cruelty, now means not a single animal in this country, farm, companion or wild, will be supported by it where there is graphic evidence of animal mistreatment”, said Professor Garlick. “Its time animals had a voice in the Parliament of this nation to ensure systemic violence towards them comes to an end”, he said.
Read the AJP policy on the live animal export trade and join the discussion on Twitter and Facebook.