An independent review of Australia’s live export trade has recommended that full traceability be extended to all live export markets, but has stopped short of calling for mandatory stunning, according to reportsyesterday.

The review by former Australian ambassador to Indonesia Bill Farmer AO was commissioned by minister for agriculture Joe Ludwig after ABC’s Four Corners program broadcast graphic footage on May 30 of Australian cattle being cruelly treated in several Indonesian abattoirs.

Mr Farmer handed his final report and recommendations to Senator Ludwig on August 30 but it is still being reviewed by Government and its contents have not yet been publicly released.

The Sunday Age reported yesterday that it has been told Mr Farmer’s report has recommended that tracing be extended to all markets that take live animals from Australia.

However, the newspaper says the review has stopped short of recommending that Australian livestock only go to abattoirs that use stunning. Animal groups have demanded stunning as a minimum welfare requirement since the images of brutality of Indonesian abattoirs were broadcast.

Australian Live Exporters Council chief executive Lach MacKinnon said that if adopted the recommendation would affect sales and would be expensive to implement.

“The trade will come under pressure, for sure, because that is what they have done in the Middle East for 2000 years and obviously countries don’t like being dictated to about how they will feed their people, but we are going to have to work with it.”

The Sunday Age article can be viewed be clicking here.