Thousands of protestors turned out at rallies organised by Animals Australia, the RSPCA and GetUp! across Australia yesterday calling on Federal MPs to vote to end live exports.

Two private members bills pushing for a permanent end to all live animal exports are due to go before federal parliament on Thursday.

Media reports estimated that about 2000 people attended the rally in Sydney, and a further 1000 in Brisbane. Large rallies were also held in every other capital city except for Darwin.

Various speakers at the different rallies said the trade was responsible for cruel treatment to animals and cost Australia’s meat processing industry jobs.

Speakers also uniformly called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to allow Members of Parliament to have a conscience vote on the issue, to prevent them from voting along on party political lines.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon showed that his opinion on live exports had not been swayed by his face to face meetings with affected pastoralists in the Northern Territory two weeks ago.

“The industry will give you a thousand reasons why we can’t stop it,” he told the crowd in Adelaide yesterday according to an ABC report.

“They say we can’t process meat here, even though that would mean creating jobs for our nation.

“We need to have a transitional approach to this so that over three years, in accordance with the RSPCA’s views on this, you can transition the industry.