Prime Minister responds to community outrage on live exports
RSPCA Australia and Animals Australia have welcomed the announcement today by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to suspend the live cattle trade to Indonesia. The announcement follows a nationwide outpouring of rage at the airing of footage showing cattle being brutalised and tortured on ABC’s Four Corners.
For the second time in six years, an investigation by Animals Australia has exposed the brutal treatment of exported cattle and forced the Federal government to take action. Today’s announcement of the suspension of the live trade to Indonesia follows the 2006 suspension of the live trade to Egypt.
"From the first moment of viewing this footage, I knew that suspending the trade was the only appropriate response from the government”, said RSPCA Australia Chief Scientist Dr Bidda Jones.
“While we are relieved at this announcement, it should not be forgotten that some 100,000 Australian cattle currently in Indonesia will face the same brutal treatment. The government must immediately put inspectors in Indonesian slaughterhouses to provide these animals with at least some protection"
"If successive Australian governments had proper oversight of this industry, these cattle and the six million previously exported to Indonesia, would not have faced the horrors of Indonesian slaughterhouses.
"If the Prime Minister didn't realise it before, she now has irrefutable evidence that the live export industry cannot be trusted. Not even MLA's own constituents are accepting their claims that they didn't know what was occurring in Indonesia. This is an industry that has made misleading the government, public and farmers an art form and animals have suffered immeasurably as a result," said Lyn White, Animals Australia Campaign Director and cruelty investigator.
"For years, this industry supplied animals to Egypt knowing they would be brutalised and now they have been exposed as complicit in Indonesia by supplying animals to the most brutal treatment imaginable and facilitating that treatment through the installation of cruel restraint devices.
"Over the past week, Australians have voiced their overwhelming outrage and disapproval of the live trade and the government's failure to take urgent action. The only way the Gillard government will redeem itself in the eyes of the public will be to support legislation soon to be introduced into the Federal parliament to end live export. RSPCA Australia and Animals Australia will continue our national campaign calling for an end to all live exports", said Ms White.
Media contact:
Lisa Chalk, RSPCA Australia, 02 6282 8300 / 0419 748 907
uxPYbsgS