Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty
PO Box 252
BRIDGEWATER TAS 7030
Phone 0420 988221
January 9, 2012
Mr Bill Farmer AO
C/- the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
PO Box 858
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Dear Mr Farmer
RE: LIVE EXPORTS – ‘SUPPLY CHAIN ASSURANCES’
We write to express our disappointment with your findings in the live export review process. Whilst the most significant recommendation may have been to mandate stunning in all importing destinations, we find that overall your report is at worst disingenuous and at best naive. Nothing in your report allays the fears held by the wider Australian community (84% of whom campaigned for an end to the trade) about the treatment of Australian animals in importing countries, and indeed before they even leave Australia.
We have attached two complaints we have sent to DAFF/AQIS which clearly demonstrate that any notion of ‘supply chain assurances’ is simply fatuous. Exporters, veterinarians, transporters and stevedores are clearly and systemically breaching both the OIE standards and the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (V2.3) as follows:-
- Article 7.2.8 (3) of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code states, in relation to the use of electric goads:-
“The use of such devices should be limited to battery-powered goads on the hindquarters of pigs and large ruminants, and never on sensitive areas such as the eyes, mouth, ears, anogenital region or belly. Such instruments should not be used on horses, sheep and goatsof any age,or on calves or piglets”.
We ask that you take the time to examine the film footage documented in our complaint, taken at various loadings at the Port of Fremantle showing that the use of electric goads is systemic, and, in our opinion gratuitous. Your report insisted that Australia’s live export industry should comply with OIE standards/recommendations, and it is clear that there is serious and endemic non-compliance.
Please advise what action you propose to take with the exporters who are vicariously liable for the actions of their employees and the employees themselves.
- Page 27 of the ALES v2.3 states that (sheep)‘must not be prepared for export if they present with:-
- Blindness in one or both eyes
- Cancer eye
- Keratoconjunctivitis (pink eye)’
As you will see in the complaint, there are countless sheep presented for loading at the port of Fremantle who should clearly have been rejected at any earlier point in the export ‘chain’. Please advise what action you propose to take with AQIS, the exporters and their employees for this serious non-compliance.
We cannot stress enough that we believe that your proposed ‘supply chain assurances’ rhetoric in your report appears to be empty and meaningless, since they clearly and routinely fail to safeguard these animals before they even leave Australia and whilst they are theoretically protected by the various Animal Welfare statutes in the relevant states and territories. There is clearly no proper examination ofthese animals by either ‘independent’ (exporter employed and paid) veterinarians at the feedlots (‘registered premises’) or AQIS veterinarians, otherwise they would never have been loaded for transport to the Port. We should not have to point out that keratoconjunctivitis is a very painful and highly contagious disease. Moreover, there is clearly no proper supervision of transporters and stevedores who are routinely and indiscriminately using electric goads on sheep in direct contravention of the OIE standards.
We also attach media reports in relation to the breakdown of the 32 year old former vehicle transporter, which was ordered to return to port in Adelaide in August. We have taken up with AQIS the matter of these potentially disease-carrying ships docking in Australian ports without any local testingto ensure decontamination. Expert veterinary advice is clear that, in order to ensure that there are no bacteria, including salmonella (the cause of significant mortalities at sea) and e-coli present before these animals are loaded, the ship/s should be comprehensively swabbed. This does not occur, Rather, AQIS apparently relies upon nothing much more than statements from the captains of these third world, flag of convenience ships that cleaning has been undertaken. Therefore there is a known risk to these animals before they are loaded, and that, we allege, is negligence on the part of the exporter, its employees (veterinarians) and the Australian government which issues the export permits.In other words, several tens of thousands of the animals who die from salmonella/enteritis complex are simply regarded as ‘collateral damage’.
What is clear to us from these and other incidents is that the exporters are out of any sort of control at all. If these animals have no protection before they even leave Australia, clearly they have absolutely no protection whatsoever once they are loaded onto ships, and when they arrive in importing countries (and you in fact noted significant breaches of OIE standards in your report).
Since we understand that your review and subsequent report was funded by the Australian taxpayer, we await your early response to these complaints.
Yours sincerely
SUZANNE CASS