Australia’s live exporters and the Howard government

Partners in animal cruelty? 

You be the judge.

 

Timeline

October 2001   

Australia’s live export industry admits knowing that slaughtermen in Cairo’s Bassateen abattoir - to which Australia had exported over 800,000 cattle - slashed tendons and stabbed eyes of cattle to disable them prior to slaughter. 

The Howard Government continues to grant export permits to Egypt.

 

August  2005  

Animals Australia provided Howard’s Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran with information that this treatment is continuing in Bassateen abattoir. 

Minister McGauran disregards our concerns replying, “Bassateen is a good example where Australia’s involvement in the live trade has allowed us to influence change and improve animal welfare conditions in the Middle East.”

 

January 2006

With the Howard Government ignoring well-founded concerns, Animals Australia/PETA investigators have no choice but to face the risks of gaining entry to Bassateen abattoir to document practices there.  The covertly obtained footage of cattle having their leg tendons slashed and eyes stabbed to disable them prior to slaughter has been assessed by international slaughter experts ; Professor Neville Gregory said that the footage showed the worst slaughter practices he has witnessed anywhere in the world.

 

February 2006

Faced with this footage being made public on leading current affairs program 60 Minutes and the ensuing public outrage, Minister McGauran announces that the Howard Government is suspending the live trade to Egypt due to welfare concerns.

 

October 2006

Egypt signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the Howard Government stating that they would comply with international guidelines regarding the treatment and slaughter of Australian animals.    

Despite Animals Australia highlighting the flaws in the MOU to Minister McGauran and informing his department that Egypt did not have the capacity or animal protection laws necessary to enforce such an agreement,
Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran publicly lauds the signing of the MOU, using it to reassure the Australian public that Australian animals would be treated humanely in Egypt.

Leading Egypt animal protection group the Society for the Protection of Animal Rights Egypt (SPARE) place an open letter to Prime Minister Howard in the Weekend Australia and the West Australian pleading with the Howard Government not to recommence sending animals to Egypt.  (link)   Its pleas are ignored and Peter McGauran reopens the trade to Egypt, 

 

November 2006

Following the reopening of the trade, the first shipment of Australian sheep loaded in Portland, Victoria and Fremantle, Western Australia arrive in Egypt.

These sheep are being imported by the Egyptian government for the Eid-al-Adha festival – the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice – when animals are broadly bought by individual buyers for sacrificial slaughter.   There was no possibility whatsoever of Egypt complying with the requirements MOU under such circumstances.

 

Late December 2006. 

Whilst the Howard Government, Minister McGauran and live exporters were celebrating a new year filled with the promise of profits and election votes, Australian and other animals were being brutalized in Cairo.

The only Australians there to monitor and document the appalling treatment of Australian animals and the extensive and continual breaches of the MOU were investigators from Animals Australia. 

 

January 2007

Animals Australia meets with Minister McGauran and personally provides him with footage and a formal report of the investigation providing indisputable evidence of Egypt’s complete disregard of the MOU – and the terrible welfare consequences for Australian animals.

 

February 2007

Despite this overwhelming evidence – and against the advice of leading experts in animal welfare (international groups, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), Australian animal protection groups, Animals Australia and RSPCA Australia),  Minister McGauran’s staff advise Animals Australia that the Howard Government will continue to grant export permits to Egypt, condemning hundreds of thousands of Australian animals to unimaginable cruelties. 

 

September/October 2007... Coming Soon!

 

The Consequences

Aside from the continued cruelty that Australian animals will suffer in Egypt, no more destructive a message about the importance of animal welfare could be conveyed to the Egyptian government, than by the Howard Government’s willingness to disregard breaches of an agreement to treat animals humanely.  

Australia’s willingness to send live animals to Egypt leads local people to the appalling conclusion that Australia and other western nations approve of their treatment of animals.  Rather than inspiring desperately needed change, Australia is affirming the belief that current brutal practices are acceptable.

 

Defending a cruel alliance

Australia’s live exporters and the Howard Government mislead farmers and the public by claiming they can change terrible animal practices in the Middle East.  This is impossible.  A few isolated training courses held by an industry responsible for the deaths of over 2 million animals at sea, will NEVER counter the belief held throughout the entire Middle East that Australians, including farmers, approve of local slaughter and handling practices.

Australia’s live exporters and the Howard Government have blood on their hands in Egypt and the Middle East.  Their continued willingness to send animals is undermining the efforts of local and international animal welfare groups to highlight the desperate need for change and for animal protection laws.

Australia’s chilled meat exports to the Egypt and the Middle East are already more profitable than the live export trade and are growing significantly each year.  This growth would only increase in the absence of the alternative option of live Australian animals.

When the Australian live export industry and Howard Government proudly proclaim ‘world’s best practice’, consider the international impact for animals of a nation such as Australia - considered ‘the lucky country’- being a ‘world leader’ in an immoral, cruel, and indefensible trade.

 

“If we don’t do it, someone else will” has never been justification for participation in something inherently wrong.

This is not about animals rights – it is about animal wrongs.

 

Live Animal Export - Indefensible