Animals Australia claims new evidence damns live exports

24 August 2007

Animals Australia has released the full details of further AQIS investigation reports obtained under freedom of information, which show high mortality rates within live export shipments. They say the reports provide damning evidence of breaches of the Australian Live Export Standards.

As a result of information contained in two of the reports, Animals Australia has lodged cruelty complaints with the Department of Local Government and Regional Development in Western Australia.

Executive director of Animals Australia, Glenys Oogjes, says the Australian public is continually told by the live export industry that Australia has the strictest live export standards in the world.

"What we aren't told is that these standards are regularly being breached, that animals are suffering and dying as a result, without exporters being prosecuted or penalised," Ms Oogjes said.

She said there is sufficient information in the AQIS reports to warrant a full investigation by the WA Government, as to whether certain shipments breached the WA Animal Welfare Act.

Two reports in particular relate to a shipment of cattle to the Middle East in which 247 cattle died and a shipment of goats from Geraldton to Malaysia.

* All five AQIS investigation reports obtained through FOI into high mortality shipments (in 2006) can be viewed on the Animals Australia website.

SOURCE: Rural Press National News Service, Parliament House Bureau, Canberra.

 

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