The graphic footage has sparked a new round of controversy over the ethics of Australia’s live animal export trade, which reaps nearly two billion dollars for exporters but relinquishes control for animal welfare once animals leave Australian shores.
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An undercover video has surfaced which shows cattle in Vietnam, understood to be exported from Australia, being slaughtered with sledgehammers and being butchered alive.
Because Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce rejected a live export ban, although he assured action would be taken, White calls on the live export industry in Australia to suspend shipments to Vietnam temporarily until the Southeast Asian country could declare its supply chain secure, reports The Daily Telegraph.
A cow lies on the floor as it’s hit with a sledgehammer.
Australia’s live export industry is split between cattle exported for meat, cattle exported for breeding, and sheep.
Animals Australia have launched a campaign calling on people distressed by the footage to contact their local MPs and call for a ban on the live export industry.
Meanwhile, the Australian Live Export Council has said that all abattoirs in the Bai Do region of Vietnam are suspended under the six-point plan for all exporters – meaning that these facilities will not receive Australian animals until the suspension is lifted.
In a statement, the ALEC claimed it had yet to be supplied with the evidence but would act immediately, including suspending the abattoirs involved from receiving Australian cattle.
“They know that the ear tags are not meant to be in the animals at these locations so there’s quite deliberate corruption of the system that’s going on that has meant that Australian cattle are ending up in these traditional slaughterhouses”, Animal Australia’s Ms White said.
ALEC chair Simon Crean said he would take “every step” to stop any exporter found to be breaching strict guidelines from supplying to Vietnam.
‘He’s putting the regulatory system under enormous stress and when you do that, problems emerge, ‘ Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon told ABC radio on Friday.
RSPCA chairman Gary Humphries said the system Australia has engineered to prevent atrocities occurring against animals was not working.
“The terror and trauma experienced by Australian cattle being sledgehammered is devastating”.
Animal welfare advocates want trade to be suspended entirely until the security of supply chains can be guaranteed.
“That is a failing on our part”, he said.
Mr Shorten said Labor supported having a live export trade, “but these images are not good enough to simply say business as usual”. Find us on Facebook too!
White says an independent office of animal welfare is needed within the Attorney-General’s department so it can investigate, prosecute and withdraw licences, and also calls for a full judicial review of the live export industry.
In 2011, Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig suspended trade with Indonesia after Four Corners footage revealed the brutal practises of certain Indonesian slaughterhouses.
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Convene an urgent meeting with all audit companies that provide or could provide ESCAS audit services in Vietnam and the Department of Agriculture & Water Resources to discuss audit challenges in the market.
