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2012/19: Should Australia ban live animal exports?





Introduction to the media issue

Video clip at right:
A September, 2012, ABC news segment in which MP Kelvin Thompson is interviewed about the recent slaughtering of allegedly diseased sheep in Pakistan. Mr Thompson expresses his preference for the New Zealand method of slaughtering humanely in NZ, then shipping the frozen carcasses to the overseas buyer. If you cannot see this clip, it will be because video is blocked by your network. To view the clip, access from home or from a public library, or from another network which allows viewing of video clips.

What they said...
'What happened in Pakistan was a sad, a terrible event, but it is not reflective of the hundreds of thousands of sheep we have exported under the new Australian export regulations'
Stephen Meerwald, the executive director of Australian livestock exporter, Wellard

'No one had checked the air-conditioning in the calf unit - and it was over 50 degrees heat - and there were dead and dying animals everywhere, and I was just absolutely heartbroken'
Vet technician, Deb Clarke, commenting on the condition of Australian cattle exported to Qatar in September, 2012

The issue at a glance
On Monday, November 5, 2012, the ABC's current affairs program, Four Corners, ran 'Another Bloody Business', which included footage showing 21,000 Australian sheep being brutally culled after local authorities insisted they were diseased.
The footage showed the inhumane manner in which thousands of sheep were killed after employees of the Pakistani importer PK Livestock, and the Australian exporter Wellard, were forced away at gunpoint.
Last year, an earlier Four Corners program showed the similarly brutal slaughter of Australian cattle at an Indonesian abattoir. The widespread public outrage led to a temporary suspension of live animal exports to Indonesia and the development of a more rigorous regulatory regime.
This year's Four Corners program has led to renewed calls from animal activists for Australia to ban live animal exports. Others, however, have argued that recent reforms have resulted in huge improvements in live animal exports and that the unfortunate events in Pakistan were an anomaly which is in no way typical of how the industry now operates.