Right: Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie introduced legislation which would require that all Australian animals exported for slaughter be stunned before being killed.
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Further implications
What has currently been achieved is a compromise unlikely to satisfy animal welfare groups and others who are seeking both the mandatory adoption of stunning and ultimately the banning of the live export trade.
On October 31, 2011, independent MP Andrew Wilkie introduced a private member's bill into Federal Parliament to make stunning mandatory for all Australian livestock exported for slaughter.
Mr Wilkie told Parliament, 'It is still my belief that Australia's live export industry should eventually be phased out.
But incremental reform is better than no reform, and it is to that end that I now propose to legislate stunning before slaughter in all of Australia's live export markets.'
Responding to the release of the Farmer review, Mr Wilkie said he was bitterly disappointed the Federal Government had shied away from mandatory stunning which would have ensured all Australian animals exported overseas were unconscious prior to slaughter.
Mr Wilkie stated, 'The Government's confirmation today that it will only encourage stunning says to the industry that it's OK for un-stunned slaughter, the cruellest aspect of live export, to continue.
My hope that the Government would show a greater interest in animal welfare and public opinion was misplaced. I now look forward to the Parliamentary debate on my Bill, which I'm confident has the support of millions of Australians.'
The extent of popular disquiet about Indonesian slaughtering practices is not, however, sufficient to determine the issue.
As Dr Siobhan O'Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne has stated, 'An enormous number of Australians responded passionately to the Four Corners footage. But the issue of live animal exports is considerably different to other issues where MPs could vote according to the dictates of their conscience.
The key difference is the sizeable financial investments, and returns, tied up with the live animal export trade.'
Currently exporters believe that requiring importers of livestock to stun before slaughter is too great an imposition and they are not prepared to sacrifice the profitable live export trade in the name of popular discomfort about the details of animal slaughter.
Mr Wilkie's bill is likely to attract only the support of the Greens.