Live Animal Exports
The cessation of live animal transportation over long distances which cause extreme distress and/or cruelty.
Animal Justice Party Policy on Live Animal Exports and the Export of Animal Products
If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large. William Wilberforce (anti-slavery campaigner, 1759-1833)
Summary
The Animal Justice Party (AJP) opposes in the strongest possible terms the export of live animals of all species for profit, for whatever purpose, particularly for slaughter, on welfare, economic and societal grounds. This is a grubby industry, supported by all Australian governments, in which a few private individuals and corporations make money from the misery of millions of sentient creatures. The Party recognises that the issue will never be decided by government on the basis of the undoubted and proven cruelty inherent in this trade. In the last thirty years, Australia has sent more than thirty million sheep and cattle to be slaughtered in other parts of the world. Smaller numbers of goats, deer, buffalo, and camels are also exported live. In our view this industry has parallels to the trade in human slaves, thankfully brought to an end throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, through the actions of William Wilberforce and others. Almost two centuries later, other living beings suffer the same appalling misery of live transport – this time from our own Australian shores.
Policy
Notwithstanding the fact that the Animal Justice Party does not support the slaughter of animals, it nonetheless recognises that if animals must be slaughtered, it must be under strict standards of humaneness and it must be as close to the animals’ ‘point of production’ as possible. No animal is to be slaughtered without pre-stunning.
1. The party will identify and coordinate policy and principles with all relevant stakeholders including:
• The Humane Society International
• Animals Australia
• Animals Angels
• The RSPCA
• The Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union; and
• any other entity which holds similar values and principles to those of the Party’s Live Animal Export Policy
2. The Party will campaign vigorously with the Australian and state governments to end the live export trade and increase investment in jobs in complementary sectors in Australia.
3. The live export trade is to be phased out in the immediate term.
• The AMIEU position is that market distortions (in the form of tariffs and subsidies) significantly favour the live export trade, to the detriment of the meat processing sector
• Until such time as the live export trade is ended, a veterinarian independent from the government and the exporter is to accompany every voyage, without exception; and
• Independent and qualified animal welfare inspectors will inspect every animal, every truck or rail transport, and every vessel, upon which Australian animals are loaded or will be loaded.
4. Regulation
• The live export industry will not be self-regulating
• All mortality figures, without exception, will be published in full to the Australian community.
Arguments in support of the policy:
Welfare:
In their dealings in the trade of live animals, Australian governments claim to have the ‘highest animal welfare standards in the world’. Unfortunately such claims are fundamentally flawed, as animal welfare legislation is operationally a state/ territory responsibility, with the result that it lacks national coordination and consistency in standards. In Western Australia, for example, the state from which 80 per cent of Australia’s exported live sheep are shipped, it is a known fact that there is just one government animal welfare inspector on duty for the entire state.
- Live animals should not be seen as a commercially tradeable commodity unless it is specifically in the animal’s own welfare interests. They are sentient beings and ought not to be viewed as objects to be moved from their home environment simply for financial gain.
- Generally, and particularly in relation to farm production animals, the means of live animal transport are far from suitable, resulting in long periods of confinement in a completely unnatural environment under distressing physical conditions and with considerable emotional deprivation. Until fully qualified veterinary supervision and intervention are provided in every live animal transport situation, independent of government and the exporting companies, there can be no transparency in this industry and no confidence that satisfactory animal welfare standards will be adhered to.
- The animal welfare standards in the countries to which the exported live animals are sent are often woefully inadequate and the animals are likely to be subjected to the cruellest of treatment before and during slaughter. Animals Australia has documented only a fraction of this brutality and it is unconscionable that it should be allowed to continue
Economic:
In 1985, a Senate Select Committee determined that, if it were to be judged on cruelty alone, the live export trade should end, but perceived economic interests have prevailed over animal welfare with successive state and federal governments.
The export trade in live animals is not in the national economic interest for several reasons. First, the industry’s profitability exists only because it receives significant Australian government incentives and advantages from tariff and non-tariff trade barriers in export markets. The industry is therefore cushioned against the need to create efficiencies. Second, as a low value-added industry it takes export market share away from the higher value-added chilled meat export sector with which it directly competes. The AJP does not support an industry that receives government assistance to generate low value-added export output when there is a higher value-added alternative already in place.
- The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union believes the live animal export industry costs the Australian economy 40,000 jobs.
- A report commissioned by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation Ltd: ‘Impact of the live animal export sector on the Australian meat processing industry’ (2000) stated that by competing directly with the chilled meat trade internationally, the live animal trade creates national losses in GDP amounting to around $1.5 billion and around $270 million in household income.
- The Australian Meat Processor Corporation Ltd report (2000) notes that when the live export trade to Saudi Arabia was first suspended (in 1991-2000) there was a three-fold increase in chilled meat exports to that country. The report argues that any lost revenue from the cessation of live animal exports for slaughter could be more than replaced by improvements in efficiency in the chilled meat industry.
Societal:
A number of rural communities throughout Australia depend for their employment on the chilled meat industry. The processing of Australian live animal exports in foreign countries has negatively impacted on rural abattoir viability, leading to many closures, with consequent loss of jobs and population, before there has been the chance to develop any alternative and more ethical industries.
This AJP policy should be read in association with the following other policies:
- A healthy diet
- Farm production animals
- Domestic saleyards and abattoirs.