Federal agriculture minister Joe Ludwig has described footage from Egypt showing the mistreatment of Australian cattle as “sickening”, but maintains that the new regulatory system surrounding livestock exports is working.
The minister told a media conference at the Gold Coast on Saturday that his department had launched an immediate investigation into allegations of mistreatment as soon as footage was made available by Animals Australia last Wednesday.
He said investigators in Australia and Egypt are now working to verify the footage, to establish if breaches of international World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) standards have occurred, and to ensure that those responsible for identified breaches are held to account.
Mr Ludwig said he ‘applauded’ Australian live export industry leaders for their immediate decision to suspend trade into Egypt while the investigations are taking place.
“It’s the sensible course of action to do at this junction,” he said. “What we now will do is conduct an investigation of these circumstances and until such time that is concluded I expect industry will continue to suspend live animal exports into that market.”
Asked by journalists if the latest complaint was an example that checks and balances weren’t working, because the allegations were brought to the Government’s attention by an animal rights group, Mr Ludwig said the ‘opposite was true’.
“What’s actually in place is a system that ensures that where there are complaints, we investigate those individual complaints; we look at what happens and then the department of agriculture, the regulator in these circumstances, then holds the exporters to account,” he said.
“What happened before was that self-regulation had failed. Self-regulation meant that you didn’t know what animals went into what slaughter yards, or even how you could follow up with an investigation.
“What we do have now is a circumstance where there are complaints, those complaints are investigated and we can see what happened and then fix the circumstances."
“…Now we have a system where the community has confidence that 99 percent of the animals that are sent overseas we can ensure that they have a good animal welfare outcome.”
Mr Ludwig said the live export industry was a good trade with a bright future, but it had to maintain animal welfare outcomes and to ensure it could remedy problems when they arose.
Animals Australia has indicated the footage has been given to media and will be broadcast this week.
Mr Ludwig variously described the contents of the footage as very disturbing, sickening and appalling, and said he believed cattle producers would also feel sickened by the footage.
“I think cattle producers would feel exactly like I would, they would be sickened too,” he said.
“They spend a lot of time nurturing their animals, bringing their animals through.
“They want those animals to enter the production system and that they have a humane outcome.
“With all the producers I have ever spoken too, that’s what they want to see happen to their animals.
“They care for their animals, so what they also should take cognisance of is that this is an important trade and they should ensure through their exporters, through their markets, through their contacts, that they can continue to ensure that animal welfare outcomes are paramount.
Mr Ludwig said he had been advocating the need for improved animal welfare standards to international bodies and foreign governments.
“In Indonesia and right across in all countries that I’ve spoken to respond very well to that. Nobody wants to see the mistreatment of animals in supply chains.”
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