tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/live-exports-587/articlesLive exports – The Conversation2020-05-04T19:50:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1375982020-05-04T19:50:25Z2020-05-04T19:50:25ZNew findings show Australian sheep face dangerous heat stress on export ships<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332203/original/file-20200504-42918-1c3fchm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5472%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trevor Collens/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been almost three years since thousands of Australian sheep <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/05/disgusting-death-of-2900-australian-sheep-on-ship-to-middle-east-sparks-investigation">died</a> during a voyage from Australia to the Middle East. My group’s <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/4/694">new research</a> provides insight into the heat stress faced by sheep exported in recent years and casts further doubt on the industry’s future.</p>
<p>We found sheep experienced heat stress on more than half of voyages to the hottest port in the Middle East, Doha, over three summers from 2016 to 2018.</p>
<p>This is the first time the extent of heat stress in live sheep exports from Australia has been quantified, and the findings do not bode well. A federal government ban on exports during the Northern Hemisphere summer is already hurting the industry. And COVID-19 looks likely to affect the annual Hajj pilgrimage and Eid al-Adha religious holiday, when our sheep meat is in high demand.</p>
<p>The future of Australia’s live sheep export industry appears bleak. Sheep farmers would be wise to seriously explore alternatives.</p>
<h2>Severe heat stress exposed</h2>
<p>Australia to the Middle East is one of the world’s longest sea transport routes of live sheep for slaughter, usually taking about 20 days. </p>
<p>The welfare risk to sheep from heat stress is highest on voyages departing Australia in our winter, and arriving in the Persian Gulf in the Northern Hemisphere summer. </p>
<p>In April 2018, whistleblowers released video footage filmed the previous year showing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/05/disgusting-death-of-2900-australian-sheep-on-ship-to-middle-east-sparks-investigation">shocking live export conditions</a> on the Awassi Express ship. More than 2,400 sheep died on the voyage from Fremantle to the Middle East. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ban-on-live-sheep-exports-has-just-been-lifted-heres-whats-changed-123998">The ban on live sheep exports has just been lifted. Here’s what’s changed</a>
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<p>The footage triggered public outrage. As part of its response, the federal agriculture department established a committee, of which I was a member, to assess the heat risk facing sheep exports to the Middle East.</p>
<p>The committee recommended measures to ensure sheep experienced heat stress on fewer than 2% of voyages. Subsequent research by my group would reveal just how far the industry is from that target.</p>
<h2>Alarming findings</h2>
<p>The federal government granted us access to temperature and mortality data from 14 voyages from Australia to the Middle East in May to December, between 2016 and 2018.</p>
<p>We wanted to know at what temperatures the welfare of the sheep began to be affected by heat stress. </p>
<p>To determine this, we analysed so-called “wet bulb temperatures” on the sheep decks. This measures not just air temperature but water vapour, which affects the levels of heat stress actually experienced at a particular temperature.</p>
<p>Wet bulb temperatures typically increased from 20°C to 30°C during the 14 voyages in the Northern Hemisphere summer. Ten out of 14 ships stopped at Doha in Qatar, the hottest of the four Gulf ports. There, daily maximum <a href="http://www.livecorp.com.au/LC/files/48/48f2cd95-fd4b-43fa-be08-897c547d0ec0.pdf">wet bulb temperatures</a> from July to September exceed 27.5°C half the time, at which point heat stress in sheep increases.</p>
<p>The wet bulb temperatures at Doha exceeded 32.2°C 2% of the time, at which point sheep deaths are more common.</p>
<p>Ships docking at Doha sit in the sun for about a day and a half while some sheep are unloaded, exposing those left on board to high temperatures.</p>
<h2>The ban is not enough</h2>
<p>The federal government recently <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2020L00389">banned sheep exports</a> to the Middle East between June 1 and September 14 this year, due to heat stress risks. Shipments to Doha are banned from May 22 until September 22. </p>
<p>The government has argued that a <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/controlled-goods/live-animals/livestock/history/review-northern-summer#final-ris-stage">longer ban would have too great an impact on the industry</a>. But our results show mortality increases during voyages from September to November, compared with May. This suggests more sheep will die as a result of the shorter ban. </p>
<p>The government introduced other measures this year to try to improve sheep welfare on ships.</p>
<p>First, it will require temperature data to be recorded at two sheep pens per deck. However my group has shown this does not produce <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1537511016306109?via%3Dihub">representative results</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-live-sheep-exports-tarnish-australias-reputation-and-should-be-stopped-94935">Grattan on Friday: Live sheep exports tarnish Australia's reputation and should be stopped</a>
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<p>Second, sheep can be unloaded at no more than two ports. But our results suggest that it is not the number of ports that influenced sheep deaths, but whether sheep were kept in hot conditions on board at Doha. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has struck a further blow to sheep welfare. The federal government requires that <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/controlled-goods/live-animals/advisory-notices/2020/2020-06">animal welfare audits</a> are conducted at holding facilities in the destination countries. But <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-03-18/coronavirus-concerns-for-australian-live-export-trade/12066650">quarantine requirements have made these checks difficult</a>.</p>
<p>It’s also worth remembering that heat stress is not the only challenge sheep face en route to the Middle East. They usually have <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9090700">very little space</a> and likely get stressed by <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/9/9/700">ship motion</a>.</p>
<h2>A double whammy</h2>
<p>The Australian live sheep export trade has declined from about <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1920/Chronologies/LiveExport">7 million per year in the late 1980s to about 1 million per year</a> now. </p>
<p>Australia has recently been unable to meet the Middle East’s demand for sheep meat – a problem the industry <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-01-31/live-export-numbers-up-despite-northern-summer-trade-ban/11915498">blames partly</a> on the export ban. Middle East buyers are increasingly turning to the <a href="https://thewest.com.au/business/agriculture/qatar-looks-elsewhere-as-aussie-sheep-trade-stalls-ng-b88909508z">horn of Africa, Europe and Asia</a>. </p>
<p>Compounding this, COVID-19 looks set to force the cancellation of the annual <a href="https://theconversation.com/hajj-cancellation-wouldnt-be-the-first-plague-war-and-politics-disrupted-pilgrimages-long-before-coronavirus-135900">Hajj</a> pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia culminating in Eid al-Adha – a sheep-eating festival usually celebrated by millions of Muslims.</p>
<p>The double whammy will particularly hurt Western Australia, which in 2019 handled <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-01-31/live-export-numbers-up-despite-northern-summer-trade-ban/11915498">97% of sheep</a> leaving Australian ports. </p>
<p>If the festival is not cancelled, Australian sheep may be sent early to be stockpiled alive in the Middle East, to avoid the export ban. This would leave them exposed to the high temperatures the Australian government has sought to protect them from on ships.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>Some Western Australian sheep farmers have seen the writing on the wall. In the short term, some are turning to alternative livestock, such as prime lamb or beef cattle for domestic consumption or export as carcasses. This has the added benefit of keeping processing jobs in Australia. </p>
<p>In the long term, farmers would do well to look at the rising popularity of <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/9431561/The-increasing-popularity-of-vegetarianism?rm=m">vegetarianism</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/01/vegans-are-coming-millennials-health-climate-change-animal-welfare">veganism</a>, and the threat to conventional meat production posed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-animal-required-but-would-people-eat-artificial-meat-72372">“clean” meat</a> grown in labs. </p>
<p>Some sheep grazing has already been replaced by <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-25/sheep-numbers-on-decline-in-wa-as-farmes-choose-crops/8213700">cropping</a>, and this is likely to increase in future. </p>
<p>There is no quick fix to the problems facing live sheep exports from Australia. The sooner we shift our economic reliance to more humane alternatives, the better. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-meat-exports-be-made-humane-here-are-three-key-strategies-96213">Can meat exports be made humane? Here are three key strategies</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips is affiliated with Voiceless as a member of their scientific advisory committee. He receives grant funding from Open Philanthropy Project. The European Union provided funding to support the modelling of data referred to in this article. </span></em></p>Sheep exported live for slaughter in the Middle East are routinely exposed to high temperatures.Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/974522018-05-30T06:11:55Z2018-05-30T06:11:55ZPolitics podcast: Michael McCormack on Barnaby’s future, latte sippers and other matters<p>With yet another round of the Barnaby Joyce affair distracting the government, the next question will be whether the beleaguered MP runs again in his New England seat at the election.</p>
<p>In this interview with The Conversation, Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack pointedly avoids saying Joyce should do so.</p>
<p>“That’ll be a matter for him and that’ll be a matter for the National party in New England. That’ll be a matter for a branch to nominate him and then that’ll be a matter for the branch members in New England as to whether or not they decide if he nominates or if anybody else nominates,” McCormack says.</p>
<p>“Then it becomes a preselection process as to who they think would best represent them going forward”.</p>
<p>McCormack also speaks about the reception for the government’s tax plans in regional Australia, lashes out at those city-dwellers “sipping lattes” who’d close down live animal exports, and declares “trust me, I am no pushover for anybody”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this interview Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack pointedly avoids saying Joyce should run again in his New England seat at the election.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968492018-05-18T05:37:52Z2018-05-18T05:37:52ZThe live export trade is unethical. It puts money ahead of animals’ pain<p>Last month millions of Australians saw <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-10/9634420">footage</a> of sheep dying slowly from heat and thirst while being shipped on the Awassi Express from Fremantle in Western Australia to Doha, Qatar. The voyage was last August, and what viewers saw was a very small portion of the suffering undergone by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/world/australia/qatar-sheep-deaths.html">2,400 sheep who reportedly died</a> on that one voyage. The suffering came to light only because a whistleblower working on the ship was so disturbed by what he saw that he took video and sent it to Animals Australia.</p>
<p>Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, a <a href="http://davidlittleproud.com.au/about/">Nationals MP from rural Queensland with a background in agribusiness</a>, said he was “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/agriculture-minister-david-littleproud-live-export-sheep-deaths/9623202">shocked and gutted</a>” by the footage. As Littleproud’s reaction shows, it is not just those at the vegan/animal-rights/green end of the political spectrum who are horrified by these scenes.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberal-rebel-will-proceed-with-bill-after-government-preserves-sheep-trade-96788">Liberal rebel will proceed with bill after government preserves sheep trade</a>
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<p>On many other occasions, I have <a href="https://www.peta.org/about-peta/learn-about-peta/ingrid-newkirk/animal-liberation/">argued</a> that we ought to give the same weight to the suffering of animals as we give to similar forms of human suffering. In my view that means that in most circumstances we shouldn’t be eating animals at all, but that is not the main issue here. Even those who think that human interests normally override the interests of animals can see that what happened on the Awassi Express was wrong and ought not to be allowed to happen again.</p>
<p>So what did Littleproud do? He set up an inquiry. Fair enough. But to head the inquiry and make recommendations, he appointed Michael McCarthy, a vet who has spent most of his career working as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/23/live-exports-review-animal-welfare-groups-criticise-vets-appointment">paid contractor to the live export industry</a>, including work for Emanuel Exports, the company that stocked the Awassi Express. </p>
<p>It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, to read yesterday that McCarthy <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/controlled-goods/live-animals/livestock/history/review-northern-summer">did not recommend an end to the live export trade</a>. He didn’t even go along with the recommendation of the Australian Veterinary Association, which favoured <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-the-sheep-trade-in-the-northern-summer-veterinarians-say-96227">suspending the trade for the northern summer</a>. The association said that during those months there is no way to eliminate the risk of sheep suffering and dying from heat stress.</p>
<p>Instead, McCarthy ignored a <a href="http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/mp-live-export-mccarthy-review.php">decade of data</a> showing that lower stocking densities do not overcome the welfare problems that frequently occur in hot weather. He recommended that the trade continue, with lower stocking densities and some other requirements, none of which can guarantee even a minimally decent standard of animal welfare.</p>
<h2>The suffering goes on</h2>
<p>After seeing the suffering of the sheep, Littleproud said: “This cannot go on.” But under McCarthy’s recommendations, it will go on. We’ve seen it all before. In July 2016, <a href="https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/a-one-off-for-the-awassi-express#gs.8LKnikY">more than 3,000 sheep died</a> on the same ship, the Awassi Express. It’s a recurring pattern: every few years more evidence of the suffering of the sheep comes to light, there are expressions of shock and outrage, new conditions are imposed on the industry, things go quiet for a while, and then it all happens again.</p>
<p>Why? In the moral framework in which the trade operates, sheep are cargo, something to be moved from A to B because you can get more money for them at B than you can at A. Of course, the less you pay for the transport the more you profit, so exporters are always going to try to cut corners.</p>
<p>Sheep are not iron ore or wheat. They are sentient beings who cannot protest against what we are doing to them, except by dying. We are handing them over to people who have no special concern for their well-being, on a ship far from the eyes of the media. We may put veterinarians or other observers on board, but on a long voyage it is only human nature to try to get along with the others on board and not cause problems. The mistake is to put the sheep in such a vulnerable situation in the first place.</p>
<p>Even the sheep who survive the journey and are landed in the Middle East remain vulnerable. Once landed, we have no control over how they are treated and slaughtered. No regulations can prevent Australian sheep being taken to a place where they may be bought at a local market, trussed by the legs, dumped in the boot of a car and driven home to have their throats cut, fully conscious, by an inexperienced person celebrating <em>Eid al Adha</em>, the Festival of Sacrifice.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-the-sheep-trade-in-the-northern-summer-veterinarians-say-96227">Stop the sheep trade in the northern summer, veterinarians say</a>
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<p>If we were living in desperate poverty, we might have some excuse for putting our survival ahead of the suffering of sheep. But Australia is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. We do not need to continue this trade, and it is not difficult to see that what we are doing is wrong.</p>
<p>The best hope now lies in a bill that Liberal MP Sussan Ley is <a href="https://theconversation.com/liberal-rebel-will-proceed-with-bill-after-government-preserves-sheep-trade-96788">planning to move in parliament</a> to end or at least phase out the live export trade. Senator Derryn Hinch and the Greens have also been strong supporters of halting the trade. </p>
<p>This is every bit as much a question of ethics as same-sex marriage, and members of parliament should be free to vote in accordance with their conscience. If a majority votes against the trade they would remove a stain from our national conscience too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Singer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In choosing not to ban the live export trade even in the hottest northern months, the federal government is allowing animals to be put in conditions where they cannot possibly escape suffering.Peter Singer, Professor of Ethical Issues in Biotechnology, Justice and the Human Good, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/961132018-05-04T03:16:02Z2018-05-04T03:16:02ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the budget outlook<figure>
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<p>Michelle Grattan speaks with University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics. They discuss the shock resignation of Labor MP Tim Hammond, the latest Gonski report, a change in Labor’s stance on live sheep exports and the federal budget outlook.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks with Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/953772018-04-20T05:12:39Z2018-04-20T05:12:39ZVIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the banking royal commission<figure>
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<p>Michelle Grattan speaks to University of Canberra’s Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics. They discuss the appalling findings from the banking royal commission that have led the government to admit just how necessary an inquiry was. They also discuss Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack’s gaffe about Treasurer Scott Morrison bringing a budget of goodies, and the ongoing pressure regarding live sheep exports.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan owns bank shares.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paddy Nixon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan speaks to University of Canberra’s Deep Saini about the week in Australian politics.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraPaddy Nixon, Vice-Chancellor and President, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/949352018-04-12T12:18:23Z2018-04-12T12:18:23ZGrattan on Friday: Live sheep exports tarnish Australia’s reputation and should be stopped<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214512/original/file-20180412-543-ecfyva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's sheep trade is worth $250 million annually and involves about two million sheep.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steven Walling/Wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If a farmer were caught subjecting animals on his or her property to the suffering endured by the sheep on the Emanuel Exports ship last August, they’d find themselves in court, perhaps in jail, and almost certainly banned from possessing animals in future.</p>
<p>When it’s an export company, it gets a permit for another shipment.</p>
<p>The public, and new Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, have been predictably angered by the recent footage brought to light by Animals Australia, shot by a whistleblower on the ship.</p>
<p>In the August voyage about 2400 animals died horribly, some apparently literally melting, with another couple of hundred unaccounted for. A year before, more than 3000 sheep died on a ship from the same exporter, plying the same route.</p>
<p>For Australia, this is a national disgrace. Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli prime minister, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Netanyahu/videos/10155518076782076/">posted a video</a> this week condemning the “tremendous cruelty”, and saying she would approach Lucy Turnbull (the August sheep weren’t bound for Israel, but it does import Australian sheep).</p>
<p>The live cattle trade, mainly centred on south east Asia, is bad enough. The sheep trade (worth A$250 million annually and involving about two million sheep) is worse. Most of the sheep are sent much further - to the Middle East, often into the sweltering northern summer heat. Anyone who has dealt with yarded sheep in hot weather knows how easily they become stressed, let alone in these cramped, frequently filthy conditions for weeks.</p>
<p>We should remember that the current scandal is just a new iteration of a very familiar story. Over the years, the plight of sheep bound for the Middle East has burst into the headlines. Then, after promises by the government of the day that things will change, attention has faded, while the pain and deaths have continued. The total mortality has run into millions.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-pm-netanyahu-says-lucy-turnbull-has-given-promise-on-sheep-issue-95042">Israeli PM Netanyahu says Lucy Turnbull has given promise on sheep issue</a>
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<p>In February, Western Australian Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan asked her department to investigate the high death rate in the August 2017 consignment, which had sailed from Fremantle. She said the WA government’s legal advice was that the state’s animal welfare law applied to live export ships. She also wrote to Littleproud.</p>
<p>But it took the <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/04/08/21/06/60-minutes-live-export-sheep-vessel">footage shot</a> by a Pakistani crew member, Fazal Ullah, to force the issue into the public’s consciousness and galvanise Littleproud into several announcements.</p>
<p>Among his responses, Littleproud has set in train a “short, sharp review of the standards for the sheep trade during the Middle Eastern summer”, which is being done by a veterinarian who has worked in the trade. Littleproud told the ABC, however, that he opposed a ban on the summer trade.</p>
<p>It doesn’t need a review to tell you that for the sheep these voyages - even when they go better than this one did - are hell, whatever “standards” are imposed.</p>
<p>The “regulator” overseeing the trade is the federal Agriculture Department. Littleproud said on Monday that ten days previously (before seeing the footage) he had received a report from the department about the August shipment. “I became concerned by that report not finding any breaches of standards by the exporter in question.”</p>
<p>The report says the cause of the high mortality was heat stress but that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority had concluded “all livestock services on the ship were operating satisfactorily during the voyage”. The department had a few words to say to Emanuel about heat management and risk, but a subsequent consignment was approved (its death toll in cooler conditions was lower).</p>
<p>Littleproud said the report didn’t match up with the vision that has subsequently been seen, and he had “some real difficulty” with that. He brought in the attorney-general’s office to advise on who would be best to undertake a review “of the skills and capabilities and culture” of the regulator to provide better investigative powers.</p>
<p>“I am somewhat concerned that we have had to do this”, Littleproud said. Given the known and controversial history of the trade, this is a massive understatement. The handling of the affair is an indictment of the negligence of the department.</p>
<p>Littleproud has sought to get on the front foot in the wake of the footage. He’s set up a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/09/whistleblower-hotline-announced-to-expose-live-export-cruelty">whistleblowers hotline</a>. A shipment from the same exporter that was due to sail on Monday this week has been delayed while adjustments are made. Littleproud said he was keeping the opposition informed, and working with animal welfare representatives.</p>
<p>He has thanked “the whistleblower for coming forward” and declared “I’d like to see company directors be held more personally accountable if they do the wrong thing, facing big fines and possibly jail time”.</p>
<p>The government knows the strength of public feeling on this issue. While Labor ended up getting blowback when the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/people-power-victory-on-live-exports-20110607-1fr41.html">Gillard government suspended</a> the live cattle trade after an ABC expose of how the cattle were treated in Indonesia, that government was acting in response to a massive public reaction. Animal cruelty, rightly, hits a very sensitive nerve with people.</p>
<p>Surely Australians can’t tolerate the continuation of shipments in the northern summer – at a minimum, Littleproud should stop those ASAP.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting the United Kingdom is presently considering a possible ban on live exports, post Brexit.</p>
<p>Despite the latest revelations, early Thursday morning the Livestock Shipping Services’ “Maysora”, left for the three-week journey to Turkey, with 77,000 sheep and 9,500 cattle. It has an Agriculture department inspector aboard, but there have not been changes to the regulations.</p>
<p>Even if it were much better regulated, live sheep exporting is inevitably a cruel trade. It should be scrapped entirely. Victorian crossbench senator Derryn Hinch, who has campaigned on the issue for decades, is arguing for a three-year phase-out. The number of sheep exported has been in long-term decline, as more boxed sheep-meat is being sold abroad. Farmers have a direct alternative domestic market to sell into.</p>
<p>The Coalition government will not end the trade. It’s unlikely to ban the summer trade; the issue may come to whether it is willing to put conditions on the exporters that are onerous enough to limit its commercial viability. The WA ALP government appears ready to keep some pressure on the Turnbull government.</p>
<p>Federal Labor wants bipartisanship, but perhaps might advocate a ban on summer trade if the government will not – depending on what the review says.</p>
<p>If the Shorten opposition had the courage – which it lacks – to promise a phase-out of the live sheep trade, with some adjustment assistance, it would not only be doing the right thing morally but, in political terms, it would probably gain more support than it lost.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It doesn’t need a review to tell you that for the sheep these voyages - even when they go better than this one did - are hell, whatever “standards” are imposed.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/947302018-04-10T19:58:00Z2018-04-10T19:58:00ZAustralia’s history of live exports is more than two centuries old<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214023/original/file-20180410-75767-1u99jz6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sheep undergoing live export in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Animals Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent episode of <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/04/08/21/06/60-minutes-live-export-sheep-vessel">60 Minutes</a> has captured public attention and the political agenda by airing dramatic video footage from Animals Australia, showing the fate of Australian animals in the live export trade.</p>
<p>Video shot secretly by a crew member shows sheep on five separate voyages from Fremantle to the Middle East last year. They are buffeted by the movement of the ship, strain to breathe in the hot, noisy and acrid atmosphere between decks and trample the dead and dying under their hooves.</p>
<p>But while these glimpses inside a transport ship are new, the practice of live animal export is as old as the European colonisation of Australia. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-live-animal-export-ever-be-humane-19804">Can live animal export ever be humane?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Animals of the new colony</h2>
<p>The first arrival of animals that would later be exported from Australia, including sheep, cattle and goats, can be dated with unusual precision to January 1788. </p>
<p>Like the convict workforce who made up the bulk of the human cargo on the First Fleet, the livestock, purchased mainly at the Cape of Good Hope, were considered necessary to transplant a British society and economy in Antipodean soil. Live animal import from other colonies, like India and Batavia, and from Europe continued throughout the first century of colonisation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214031/original/file-20180410-75793-1his9jf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hoists were used to load and unload live animals in ports without purpose-built ramps. This photograph demonstrates the practice in India in 1895.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/wtc.4a02965.">Source: William Henry Jackson, World’s Transportation Commission photograph collection. Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Breeds that suited the climate and their roles in the colony, especially those that helped displace native plants and animals and Indigenous peoples, were sought after and carefully nurtured.</p>
<p>Gradually the inward flow of animals reversed. Flocks and herds increased to the point where some could be <a href="http://www.whpress.co.uk/EH/papers/830.pdf">sold on to other destinations</a>. Initially, this was to the other colonies Britain was establishing in the region, such as Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), Western Australia, New Zealand and South Australia. These animals were primarily traded to establish new populations at their destinations.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.whpress.co.uk/EH/papers/830.pdf">Animals from New South Wales</a> were also sent to the French colony of New Caledonia, and in small numbers farther afield to Russia, Japan and India. As numbers rose, larger-scale live export for consumption became established. </p>
<h2>A hidden process</h2>
<p>As in the present, this trade had distinct phases, some more visible than others. The process began where the animals were raised, generally on lightly stocked rangelands in the interior. They were driven on foot or loaded onto rail carriages to be taken to ports, where they waited in open yards to be loaded onto ships. </p>
<p>Thus far, the animals were moving through public spaces, where their treatment and conditions could be seen and in some cases recorded. Members of the public could register their concerns and seek to have mistreatment addressed. And even in a period when animal welfare was still an emerging concept, some did. </p>
<p>Railcars laden with frightened stock led to <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1367032">complaints</a> about overcrowding and lack of access to food and water. One observer labelled such treatment “as gross a case of cruelty as it is possible to conceive”.</p>
<p>However, once the animals were hoisted or walked onto ships, they became invisible. No outsider could see them. Only those involved with the voyage knew how densely they were packed, how secure their pens were, whether their dung was cleared away, or how much food and water they received over journeys that could last for weeks. In the case of sheep, the advice was to pack them like wool bales, so tightly pressed together that they prevented one another from falling over. </p>
<p>In many cases, the animals were barely seen at all, except by one another, being left to their own devices on short voyages. During longer trips they would be tended to minimally, because of the toxic environment created below deck by what were termed their “exhalations of carbonic gases”. </p>
<p>Even the evidence of how many died on the voyages was hidden. Their bodies were thrown overboard before reaching port and few records were kept. </p>
<p>Animals carried on open decks could be seen while at the docks and had access to better-quality air, but were more vulnerable to high seas and inclement weather.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/214032/original/file-20180410-75764-109qbzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animals carried on open decks could be seen while at the docks and had access to better-quality air, but were also vulnerable to high seas and inclement weather. Sheep in pens on a ship’s deck, Sydney Harbour, circa 1929.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sam Hood photograph, State Library of New South Wales, Home and Away, 4066.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the other end of the journey, the exported animals came back into view. This was often when the most useful accounts were recorded. Complaints about their poor condition, reduced numbers or the loss of entire shipments of animals were considered worthy of writing about in local newspapers by those who had eagerly awaited their arrival. It is at the receiving end of the export process that <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128922323">accusations</a> of flimsy pens, overcrowding or the loading of animals that were not fit for the voyage can be found. </p>
<p>Taking this longer view of the Australian live export trade shows just how extraordinary the opportunity to see what happens during live export is. Animals Australia has <a href="https://secure.animalsaustralia.org/documents/aamedia/20006_animals-australia-background-briefing-sheep-export.pdf">noted</a> that “Australia’s live sheep trade has operated for over five decades with only those financially invested in the trade having visual access to the conditions and welfare implications for the sheep on-board”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/assessing-australias-regulation-of-live-animal-exports-16427">Assessing Australia’s regulation of live animal exports</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This has been an issue for much longer than 50 years, but it’s now possible for outsiders – including farmers, politicians and members of the public – to see the appalling conditions of the live export trade for themselves. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is based on a blog post originally published by <a href="https://whitehorsepress.blog/2018/02/19/hazardous-commodities-australian-live-animal-export-from-the-long-nineteenth-century-to-today/">White Horse Press</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Cushing has received funding from the State Library of NSW. </span></em></p>Footage of sheep transport conditions have shocked many, but live export has a long history in Australia.Nancy Cushing, Associate professor, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612042016-06-17T06:50:16Z2016-06-17T06:50:16ZCattle ‘sledgehammering’ in Vietnam raises yet more questions over live export<p>Recent revelations about the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2016/s4483472.htm">sledgehammering to death of what seem to be Australian cattle</a> in Vietnam provide <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/live-exports">further evidence</a> of the government’s inability to control how exported livestock are slaughtered overseas.</p>
<p>An Animals Australia investigation reported by ABC’s 7.30 showed what are reportedly Australian cattle being slaughtered in three abattoirs. Australia has <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/live-cattle-trade-to-vietnam-suspended/news-story/20f084d44a80d00ee949dda10c732de4">suspended trade to the facilities</a> while they are investigated. </p>
<p>The government’s tool to try to ensure humane slaughter is known as the <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/controlled-goods/live-animals/livestock/information-exporters-industry/escas">Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme (ESCAS)</a>. This requires cattle to be killed in accordance with <a href="http://www.oie.int/index.php?id=169&L=0&htmfile=chapitre_aw_slaughter.htm">World Animal Health Organisation standards</a>. Killing cattle by hitting with a sledgehammer, although common practice in Vietnam, is not allowed by the standards.</p>
<p>The other requirements of ESCAS offer little reassurance to the Australian community that welfare will be safeguarded. Under the standards, cattle must be traced. This means we should know which cattle are Australian, and be able to control and audit the supply chain.</p>
<p>There are problems with this model. Supply-chain control is desirable but potentially contravenes the principles of the World Trade Organisation. Auditing is only as good as the manner in which it is undertaken, and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/government-reduces-audits-live-export-facilities-escas/6347444">there has been much recent debate</a> about this.</p>
<p>But beyond problems with Australian regulations, there are broader issues with sending live cattle overseas, and to Vietnam in particular. </p>
<h2>What do people in Vietnam think about slaughter?</h2>
<p>Vietnam is a relatively poor country, and has been even poorer in its recent history. There is little culture of caring for animal welfare when human welfare is the primary concern. Of even greater concern regarding the animals is the fact that Vietnam now acts as a staging post for Australian cattle that are ultimately en route to China and other Asian markets.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.livecorp.com.au/LC/files/30/30bad784-dce7-4ec2-a8a7-c65094d284cc.pdf">2015, Australia exported 311,523 cattle to Vietnam</a>, up from 3,353 in 2012. That’s a hundred-fold increase in just three years. Increasingly these exports are of young “feeder” cattle, which need an additional period of feeding before they are ready for slaughter. </p>
<p>At the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics (CAWE) at the University of Queensland, we have led a World Animal Health Organisation project to run <a href="http://www.animalwelfarestandards.org/">training courses in Vietnam on livestock slaughter last year</a>. This included research into Vietnamese attitudes to livestock slaughter, in comparison with other Southeast and East Asian countries.</p>
<p>For a forthcoming scientific paper, we surveyed future stakeholders in the industry – veterinary and animal science students. We found that those in Vietnam are more accepting of livestock transport by ship and road than those in China, Malaysia and Thailand. They also more readily agree that exporting livestock from a developed country to developing countries is acceptable.</p>
<p>In another survey, we investigated attitudes of those directly involved in the livestock slaughter and transport industry in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and China. Over 1,000 respondents took part, including 210 from Vietnam.</p>
<p>Similar to respondents from China, Vietnamese respondents were not confident that they could make improvements to the welfare of animals in their care, whereas those from Malaysia and Thailand were. Vietnamese respondents had the least agreement with the survey statement: “In the past I have tried to make improvements to the welfare of the animals in my care.”</p>
<p>In Malaysia, respondents identified religious beliefs as one of the motivations for improving slaughter. For Vietnamese respondents, the main factors were the law, their knowledge, the attitudes of co-workers and company approval.</p>
<p>Vietnamese respondents also rated having the right tools and resources as less important in welfare improvement. This suggests that lack of access to stunning machines isn’t a major factor. </p>
<p>While all respondents thought that welfare improvements would work best when driven by legislation and government, those in Vietnam (and China) also thought that the police played an important role.</p>
<h2>Phasing out live export</h2>
<p>Our surveys indicate the major differences between the attitudes of the cattle industry in Vietnam and Australia. The police play almost no role in livestock welfare improvement in Australian abattoirs, yet they are considered an important player in Vietnam. Unlike Muslim countries, there is no argument in Vietnam that exports support religious festivals. </p>
<p>By sending young cattle to Vietnam, the Australian agriculture industry is losing out on jobs from growing them to a mature weight and processing them before sending them overseas. There is now a state-of-the-art killing and processing facility in Darwin to achieve this; the first new cattle abattoir to be built in Australia in 50 years.</p>
<p>The latest revelations should act as a signal that Australia should phase out the export of livestock, not immediately, but over five to ten years. This would enable exporters to build trade relations for meat export, delivering a high-quality product to overseas markets for the benefit of Australian producers, the consumers and the Australian conscience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips is a member of the Voiceless Scientific Expert Advisory Panel, is on the Board of Minding Animals and has recently received funding from Australian and New Zealand governments for provision of training and conducting research on livestock transport and slaughter in SE and E Asia. </span></em></p>Australian cattle may have been killed with sledgehammers in Vietnam.Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/493682015-10-23T03:14:40Z2015-10-23T03:14:40ZThe Senate committee that deals with animal welfare is riding roughshod over dissenting views<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99307/original/image-20151022-7989-nw1tvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You don't have to work in a paddock to have a valid opinion on animal welfare.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACSIRO_ScienceImage_3145_Hand_feeding_sheep_in_paddock.jpg">Carl Davies/CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A Senate committee last week <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/Voice_for_Animals_Bill_15/Report">effectively killed off</a> a proposal to create an independent animal welfare authority for Australia.</p>
<p>Without the committee’s support, the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_LEGislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1006">Voice for Animals Bill</a> introduced by the Greens has no hope of being enacted. But the Senate inquiry that preceded the report gave a valuable insight into how animal welfare issues are viewed within our political and wider culture.</p>
<p>The inquiry was conducted by the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport">Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee</a>. Senators who have had direct involvement in livestock industries and/or represent states that are closely aligned with rural agricultural interests played a dominant part in the process.</p>
<p>This situation forms a microcosm of a wider problem with existing animal welfare regulation: that primary industries and agriculture departments administer and, in some cases, enforce animal welfare laws. They also advise governments on animal welfare, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-australian-livestock-still-turning-up-in-places-where-they-are-treated-cruelly-49442">significant input from industry</a>.</p>
<p>While most animal welfare regulation is state-based, the Commonwealth adopts the same model, with the <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/">Department of Agriculture and Water Resources</a> bearing responsibility for most national animal welfare matters, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/live-exports">live exports</a>. Yet the department’s predominant role is to support and promote agricultural and other industries – the very conflict of interest that the Greens’ bill was seeking to avoid.</p>
<h2>Cut off the ear or shoot the sheep?</h2>
<p>Agricultural and industry interests were prominent at <a href="http://parlview.aph.gov.au/mediaPlayer.php?videoID=275719">last month’s Senate hearing on the bill</a>. But many questions to witnesses representing animal protection bodies lacked obvious relevance and the tone was sometimes hectoring.</p>
<p>Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, in the chair, set the scene by asking: “If I have a ewe down in the paddock with a cancer ear, should I cut the ear off or shoot the sheep?” Similar questions to the panel followed: would they shoot a ewe with a prolapse? Do they object to poisoning and shooting pigs that eat newborn lambs? Queries as to the questions’ relevance were met with responses such as: “Have a bit of guts and have a crack.”</p>
<p>Another Liberal senator, Chris Back, a former livestock veterinarian, expressed “deep disappointment” at the suggestion that vets employed by live export companies could be professionally compromised, but did not pursue other pertinent matters, such as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/03/alive-and-kicking-australias-animal-export-trade-booms-despite-persistent-claims-of-cruelty">the department’s heavily criticised approach to enforcement of the rules governing live exports</a>.</p>
<p>Labor members of the committee also chose not to engage substantially with key issues. Instead, WA ALP senator Joe Bullock chose to ask representatives of animal welfare groups about their sources of funding, and to press them on whether they would shoot Heffernan’s hypothetical pig. </p>
<h2>Paying respects</h2>
<p>In contrast, the six senior Department of Agriculture representatives received a more respectful reception. The department’s deputy secretary was invited to sidestep the hypothetical farmyard questions, which he duly did on the basis of being a “humble economist” – a self-deprecating assessment that did not stop him offering his opinions about the relationship between industry and animal welfare.</p>
<p>This deferential attitude to those with industry connections was also on show at a <a href="http://parlview.aph.gov.au/mediaPlayer.php?videoID=261736">hearing by the same Senate committee back in May</a>, when it discussed proposed new laws to enforce reporting of animal cruelty. Although framed in terms of animal protection, this <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/s994_first-senate/toc_pdf/1500520.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/s994_first-senate/0000%22">bill</a>, introduced by Senator Back, <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-new-bill-to-protect-animals-will-do-anything-but-38103">is widely regarded as intended to protect industries from animal activism</a>. </p>
<p>It is unlikely to succeed, at least in its current form, given <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/Animal_Protection_Bill/Report">Labor’s lack of support</a> and <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/Animal_Protection_Bill/Submissions">the overwhelming number of submissions detailing its shortcomings</a>. </p>
<p>But again the hearing showed an evident disdain for animal protection bodies, including the RSPCA, on whom state governments rely to enforce animal cruelty legislation.</p>
<h2>Who speaks with authority?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most striking feature of the inquiry into the Voice for Animals Bill is its irony: an inquiry into a bill to establish an independent animal welfare office by a committee with a vested interest in industry and agriculture. More broadly, this prompts the wider question of who is entitled to speak with legitimacy and authority about animal welfare.</p>
<p>The logical inference from Heffernan’s questioning is that only those with farming or industry experience are qualified to make decisions about animal welfare – that only those who have been down in the paddock or worked directly with livestock industries are worth listening to. </p>
<p>Implicit in this view is the idea that farmers and livestock vets are beyond reproach, and that the agriculture department’s expertise is a given. These attitudes reflect a culture that accepts some animal cruelty as normal and belittles those who view it otherwise.</p>
<p>The creation of an independent office of animal welfare would be a good start in helping to change this culture. This does not preclude industry input, but ensures that other expertise is recognised.</p>
<p>In their <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/Voice_for_Animals_Bill_15/Report">dissenting report</a>, the Greens noted that their Bill could be improved by incorporating some of the submissions to the inquiry. And an independent office of animal welfare is <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/national_platform">already part of Labor’s platform</a>. </p>
<p>If politics could be set aside, these two parties could work together to put an independent animal welfare office at the forefront of public debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Ellis is a life member of the RSPCA and a member of the Australasian Animals Study Group and Animals Australia.</span></em></p>With animal welfare issues routinely handled by Senate committees with strong links to agriculture, how can we ensure that those outside the industry are being properly listened to?Elizabeth Ellis, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Law, Faculty of Law, Humanities & the Arts, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/494422015-10-20T19:37:33Z2015-10-20T19:37:33ZWhy are Australian livestock still turning up in places where they are treated cruelly?<p>Recent days have seen <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4331082.htm">yet more revelations</a> of irregularities in the live export of Australian animals, and a <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/10/17/australians-rally-against-live-exports">fresh round of protest against the trade</a>. Last week, the ABC’s 7.30 reported that many animals shipped to the Middle East are individually sold for private slaughter, rather than going through the Australian-approved abattoir system.</p>
<p>This system, called the <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/export/live-animals/livestock/information-exporters-industry/escas?wasRedirectedByModule=true">Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System</a> or ESCAS, was a Gillard Government initiative introduced in the wake of the ABC’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20110530/cattle/">2011 exposé</a> of the treatment of Australian cattle in Indonesia, which prompted a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/live-cattle-ban-to-stay-20110607-1fr8b.html">temporary suspension of the trade to Indonesia</a>. </p>
<p>ESCAS was part of a peace deal brokered between an outraged community and the live export industry. Before then, the industry was largely self-regulated. ESCAS might best be described as “enforced self-regulation” – but, as we will see, the enforcement aspect is problematic. </p>
<h2>Policing the system</h2>
<p>ESCAS is designed to ensure that Australian animals exported live overseas are held in Australian government-approved feedlots and slaughtered at Australian government-approved abattoirs. These facilities are accredited, audited, and operated under welfare standards set out by the <a href="http://www.oie.int/">World Organisation for Animal Health</a>. </p>
<p>When Australian animals are found outside ESCAS it is referred to as “leakage”. The theory is that these animals can be tracked, via their ear tags, to their original exporter, who can then have their licence revoked or suffer some other sanction without the need to suspend the entire trade. </p>
<p>As Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has <a href="http://knowinganimals.libsyn.com/protecting-animals-2-senator-lee-rhiannon-from-the-australian-greens">observed</a>, the system sounds good in theory. But she has also pointed out the impossibility of policing the movement of millions of animals in other countries.</p>
<p>And as I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/live-animal-export-rules-are-useless-without-enforcement-27278">previously argued on The Conversation</a>, Australia’s government appears not to be even trying. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/export/live-animals/livestock/regulatory-framework/compliance-investigations/investigations-regulatory-compliance?wasRedirectedByModule=true">most recent available figures</a>, the agriculture department has received 90 complaints of leakage incidents since 2012. Of these, 34 were from exporters themselves; 30 came from Animals Australia; 12 were from industry peak bodies; seven from “external third parties; three were from "the public”, two from the RSPCA; one from a media report; and one from the department itself.</p>
<p>In short, everybody else with an interest in live export seems to know more than the government about what’s happening to Australian animals in Asia and the Middle East. </p>
<p>What’s more, after three years and 90 reported incidents, no export licence has ever been suspended or revoked. </p>
<h2>Industry takes charge</h2>
<p>This lack of action now seems to be generating resentment within the industry, as well as outside it. </p>
<p>For the first two years of ESCAS, the bulk of complaints came from Animals Australia. But in mid-2014 that began to change. For reasons that are unclear, exporters began self-reporting their own breaches. Then, this year, industry peak bodies took up the running – in the past five months, 12 of the 31 complaints have been made by industry groups against individual exporters. </p>
<p>It seems that some exporters and industry representatives are increasingly feeling that those trying hardest to comply with ESCAS are suffering an unfair market disadvantage relative to those who are non-compliant. In the absence of government attempts to enforce its own rules, it falls to the exporters themselves to try and maintain a level playing field. </p>
<p>Alison Penfold, chief executive of the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4331082.htm">told the ABC</a>: “We have people on the ground, not only in our supply chains but also outside of our supply chains, looking for problems. And they found problems and we reported the problems.” </p>
<p>It would appear, then, that enforcement of ESCAS has now veered back towards industry self-regulation. </p>
<h2>The future of live export</h2>
<p>Perhaps the industry’s new strategy aims to ensure the trade’s survival in the face of accusations of poor animal welfare, by outing those outfits with the worst animal welfare records. This could result in further monopolisation of an already small sector. But the real risk, from a regulatory perspective, is that ESCAS may become even more vulnerable to industry capture. If the government continues to perceive itself as having no role to play in enforcement then industry will once again be in a position to call all the shots. </p>
<p>More broadly, it is rapidly becoming clear that nobody is capable of remaining in charge of Australian animals once they arrive in the chaos of the developing world. What is euphemistically referred to as “leakage” is more like a burst water main. </p>
<p>There seems to be no problem finding animals outside ESCAS, and there is no shortage of horrific stories of animal suffering. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the battle of wills continues, with industry apparently engaging a new strategy. At the same time, the Australian public appears no less distressed by the images of cruelty seemingly so easily captured, and the Australian government continues to appear to be at best reactive, and at worst entirely absent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan O'Sullivan receives funding from Voiceless. </span></em></p>After the 2011 live export crisis, Australia brought in rules designed to keep animals in accredited abattoirs. But with breaches widespread, there is little evidence that the rules are being policed.Siobhan O'Sullivan, Lecturer in Social Policy, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/446722015-07-15T03:56:48Z2015-07-15T03:56:48ZLean times ahead for Australian cattle as Indonesia turns to domestic farming<p>Indonesian trade minister Rachmat Gobel’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-14/barnaby-joyce-searching-cattle-markets-indonesia-slashes-imports/6617430">decision</a>, announced yesterday, to slash quotas for beef cattle imports from Australia to 50,000 for the third quarter of this year – down from 180,000 for the same period in 2014 – has left Australia without a buyer for much of its current herd. </p>
<p>Officials in Jakarta have reportedly denied that the cutback is due to diplomatic tension between the two countries in the wake of Indonesia’s execution of drug traffickers and Australia’s policy of turning back asylum boats. Gobel has said the number of cattle permits could <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/indonesia-could-increase-cattle-imports/6620326">potentially rise again</a> if there is enough demand.</p>
<p>But Indonesia says its internal beef market is now saturated, after an intake of 250,000 head of Australian cattle in the second quarter of this year, as well as high levels of domestic production. That is on top of the <a href="http://www.livecorp.com.au/industry-information/industry-statistics/cattle-statistics">221,000 animals</a> already imported from Australia between in the first quarter of 2015.</p>
<p>Indonesian consumers will not be quite so convinced, however: beef prices have <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/beef-prices-in-indonesia-rising-sharply-concerns-for-ramadan/6273314">already risen this year</a> in response to shortages. The end of Ramadan this Saturday will produce a surge in demand (and price) as Muslims celebrate the Eid festival. </p>
<h2>Indonesian farming, at a price</h2>
<p>Indonesia’s drive for self-sufficiency is not limited to beef, but extends to staple products such as rice, and the effects go far beyond its import markets. Domestic production is focused on land-poor farmers with limited education keeping small numbers of cattle in makeshift housing. Rainforest destruction to clear land suitable for the growing of cattle feed is one of the only ways to expand production, with devastating effects on native flora and fauna, including the iconic orang utans. </p>
<p>Indonesia offers financial support to help cattle producers increase production, but this has not yet been enough for the country to become self-sufficient in beef. As a result deadlines to achieve this have had to be <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/indo-pacific-governance/policy/Risti_Permani.pdf">extended by the government</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/88450/original/image-20150715-21738-7l1jjz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Estimated cattle exports from Australia to Indonesia, 1970-2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.livecorp.com.au/industry-information/industry-statistics/cattle-statistics">FAO/Livecorp/MLA</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although these statistics show an increase in Australia’s cattle exports to Indonesia, the recent fluctuations in Indonesian quotas emphasise the volatility of the live export trade. This highlights the risk of concentrating Australian exports into a limited number of markets. </p>
<p>The Indonesian market too is changing, from a demand for fresh meat to one for refrigerated and vacuum-packed products. A key to this is the availability of refrigerators and supermarkets, with <a href="https://erywijaya.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/e-028.pdf">a majority of Indonesian households</a> now having at least one refrigerator.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, northern Australia needs to reduce cattle numbers, amid a major drought affecting much of Queensland. As well as having a damaging effect on the livelihoods of the producers, a limited market risks the welfare of the cattle because producers are reluctant to buy feed supplements if the market is uncertain. </p>
<p>Some producers may get caught out if they cannot get cattle off their properties before the wet season begins in November, and may not be able to provide enough fodder. This will create welfare problems for cattle remaining on the property.</p>
<p>Alternative markets will be hard for exporters to find, as the cattle sent to Indonesia are young and destined to spend time in feedlots before slaughter. The low value of the Australian dollar has encouraged markets for beef cattle to grow in several other Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia, but spare feedlot capacity will be hard to find. </p>
<p>Abandonment of Australia’s live export trade and a focus on exporting meat instead of cattle would benefit producers by stabilising the trade, with further benefits to the welfare of cattle that have to endure the live export process, as well as to Indonesia’s native forest flora and fauna.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips is on the Scientific Panel for Voiceless. He has received funding from MLA/Livecorp/the Humane Slaughter Association for research into live export. </span></em></p>Indonesia’s shock decision to cut imports of Australian beef signals two things: Indonesia’s desire to focus on domestic cattle farming, and Australia’s lack of alternative options for exporting its own herd.Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/432492015-06-16T06:20:30Z2015-06-16T06:20:30ZNot just greyhound racing: it’s time to clean up other animal industries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85167/original/image-20150616-5838-13yxuop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Money and welfare should be separated in all animal industries. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mamboman/3203845043/">Rainer Hungershausen/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Now that <a href="https://assets.justice.vic.gov.au/ric/resources/b08942c3-590c-432f-b7c9-ddcb037e639b/2015+own+motion+report+into+live+baiting+in+greyhound+racing+in+victoria.pdf">Victoria</a> and <a href="http://greyhoundreview.qld.gov.au/pdf/final-report-1-june-2015.pdf">Queensland</a> have reported on their inquiries into the greyhound racing industry, it is timely to consider the findings of the reports and their implications for the animal industries of Australia.</p>
<p>Compared with the Victorian investigation, the Queensland investigation had more far-reaching conclusions and led to the disbanding of the entire Racing Queensland structure. </p>
<p>The Victorian report criticised the regulatory framework, but the Queensland report found this to be adequate. </p>
<p>However, there was <a href="https://assets.justice.vic.gov.au/ric/resources/b08942c3-590c-432f-b7c9-ddcb037e639b/2015+own+motion+report+into+live+baiting+in+greyhound+racing+in+victoria.pdf">evidence</a> of “conflicts of interest” within Greyhound Racing Victoria, “due to family and personal connections in the industry”. The commissioner’s report says that this should be outlawed in the Rules of greyhound racing. </p>
<p>According to the report, the racing body also told at least one welfare officer to adopt a “softly-softly” approach to welfare issues.</p>
<p>In Queensland the <a href="http://greyhoundreview.qld.gov.au/pdf/final-report-1-june-2015.pdf">MacSporran report</a> criticised the Office of Racing for failing “to identify that Racing Queensland’s activities in relation to monitoring, investigating, and reporting about compliance and integrity issues were lacking”. </p>
<p>So a notable difference between the two sets of findings was that the Victorian report supported Greyhound Racing Victoria’s monitoring of welfare issues as adequate, whereas the Queensland report criticised Racing Queensland for not adequately inspecting racing facilities and dealing with welfare issues. </p>
<p>Both conclude that the prevalence of live baiting could not be determined, but was more than just an occasional incidence. </p>
<p>And crucially, both reviews come to the landmark conclusion that the control of all racing in the states, greyhound, horse and harness, should be divided into separate commercial and integrity bodies. </p>
<h2>Cruelty everywhere</h2>
<p>Cruelty exists in all spheres of our interactions with animals but the fact that the creation of an independent integrity controlling body occurred first within the racing industry may be no coincidence. </p>
<p>The inherent cruelty involved in racing – not just in illegal activities such as live baiting, but also in sanctioned practices such as the routine thrashing of racehorses during races – is an inevitable consequence of the major financial returns attached to winning. </p>
<p>There are lessons for our other animal industries, where the lure of financial returns may also lead some to cruel practices. The <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/Style%20Library/Images/DAFF/__data/assets/pdffile/0010/2378197/independent-review-australias-livestock-export-trade.pdf">Farmer report</a> into the 2011 exposé of cruel slaughter of Australian animals overseas in Indonesia accepted that there were serious concerns about the techniques used in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Since that time there have been <a href="http://www.animalsaustralia.org/take_action/israel-live-export-investigation-2015/">many revelations</a> of similarly cruel practices, despite the introduction of the <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/export/live-animals/livestock/information-exporters-industry/escas">Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System</a> to ensure that Australian exporters can trace their animals and demonstrate that they are treated according to World Animal Health slaughtering standards. </p>
<p>World Animal Protection, the leading international animal welfare advocacy group, places Australia firmly in the <a href="http://api.worldanimalprotection.org/country/australia">second class category</a> in its international comparison of animal welfare control, below much of the EU but above the US </p>
<p>As a result of ongoing concerns there have been repeated calls for an independent approach to controlling animal cruelty in the livestock trades, which mainly sends sheep to the Middle East and cattle to Southeast Asia. Meat and Livestock Australia <a href="http://www.mla.com.au/About-the-red-meat-industry/Livestock-exports">claims</a> that the Australian live export industry has the “world’s highest animal welfare standards for livestock export”. </p>
<p>However Australia’s major rival for sheep trade in the Middle East is Sudan, and India in the case of cattle exported to South Asia. <a href="http://api.worldanimalprotection.org/country/india">India</a> receives the same rating as Australia from World Animal Protection, and Sudan is not rated. </p>
<p>The management of farm animal cruelty is largely in the domain of agriculture departments in nearly all states and in federal government. These have a mandate to support the agricultural industry. </p>
<p>Hence many cruel practices, such as the mulesing of sheep, dehorning of cattle, debeaking of hens and teeth clipping in pigs, are exempt from cruelty legislation because they deemed “necessary”. There has been a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r5056">parliamentary proposal</a> for independent management of animal welfare, which would wrest its control from bodies with a vested interest. </p>
<h2>Public willing to pay</h2>
<p>Consumer ability to discriminate between products from animals kept at different welfare standards is another facet of independent management of animal welfare that is becoming increasingly important. Only this week the state and territory <a href="http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/About_us/News_and_events/Media_releases/2015_media_releases/201506112_national_standard_for_egg.page?">trade ministers met</a> to discuss national standards for free range hens. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also has an important role in this process. </p>
<p>Financial independence should be mandatory for any body with responsibility for animal management. </p>
<p>This comes at a cost, but the Australian public have demonstrated over and over again that they would be willing to pay this. Concern over animal cruelty is at an all time high, the public are increasing their purchases of products they consider to be from animals with good welfare – eggs and cosmetics to name but two. </p>
<p>The trouble is that animals don’t vote and politicians still believe that every person in the community only selects the candidates and party that will give him or herself the highest disposable income.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips is a member of the Voiceless Scientific Panel. Of relevance to this article, he has received funding from MLA/Livecorp, RSPCA, and the Australian Department of Agriculture. </span></em></p>Now that Victoria and Queensland have reported on their inquiries into the greyhound racing industry, it is timely to consider the findings of the reports and their implications for the animal industries of Australia.Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/339472014-11-10T19:30:04Z2014-11-10T19:30:04ZMore cattle will suffer under Australia-China live export deal<p>The number of animals exported live out of Australia is set to increase as Australia prepares to enter into a A$1 billion <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-07/billion-dollar-beef-deal-china/5873496">trade agreement with China</a>. Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce has claimed up to a million Australian cattle may in the future be exported each year. </p>
<p>Live animal exports has been a divisive political issues in recent years. Passions reached boiling point when Prime Minister Gillard temporarily suspended the trade following a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2011/s3228880.htm">Four Corners exposé</a> based on footage gathered by Lyn White and her team at Animals Australia. </p>
<p>Since then, the trade has recommenced. The former Labor Government introduced a live export tracking system called the <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/information-exporters-industry/escas">Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System</a> (ESCAS); Lyn White has been awarded an <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/anticruelty-crusader-lyn-white-made-a-member-of-the-order-of-australia-in-queens-birthday-honours/story-fni0fit3-1226948060176">Order or Australia</a>; and under the Abbott government live animal exports have expanded, including into China as a new market. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the community appears <a href="https://theconversation.com/live-animal-export-rules-are-useless-without-enforcement-27278">not to have changed it’s mind</a> that live animal exports are cruel and a serious question mark hangs over the government’s ability to police, and enforce, its own rules under the assurance system. </p>
<p>In my view the deal with China is likely to increase the suffering of Australian cattle.</p>
<h2>Animal welfare in China</h2>
<p>Unlike Australia, China has no comprehensive animal welfare law. </p>
<p>On March 1 2010, a draft of China’s first animal welfare law, called the Animal Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. </p>
<p>The Standing Committee is a de facto legislative authority with considerable political power. That draft law received quite vocal opposition from sections of the community and some members of China’s ruling elite. In particular, a prohibition on the slaughter of dogs for meat (for human consumption) was controversial. </p>
<p>As a result of that opposition, three months later on 10 June 2010, a second, more watered-down version of the original draft law was presented to the same Standing Committee. </p>
<p>The second law, called the <em>Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law of the People’s Republic of China</em>, contains markedly fewer prohibitions against cruelty to animals and permits the slaughter of dogs as meat. </p>
<p>An examination of both draft laws reveals that whereas the first proposed law had 53 clauses relating to animals raised for economic purposes, the second has only 29.</p>
<p>However, this may be a moot point as in the four years since being submitted for consideration, neither law has shown any sign of progressing through the Chinese political process and neither is likely to become law anytime soon. </p>
<h2>Kill cows in Australia</h2>
<p>The world’s first modern animal welfare law was introduced in the UK in 1822. That law was enacted following more than two decades of legislative advocacy and followed several earlier, failed attempts, at getting similar laws through parliament. </p>
<p>The law that was eventually enacted in 1822 was a political compromise and contained only a small proportion of the provisions included in the unsuccessful bills. </p>
<p>If the UK experience is anything to go by it could be many decades before China has an animal welfare law, and even then it is likely to be extremely weak. </p>
<p>Of course Australia was not exporting cattle to the UK in 1822, yet it appears that we will soon be sending our animals to China. </p>
<p>While Australian animals who find themselves in China will not have to face the horrors of ritual slaughter, as they do in the Middle East, they will nonetheless face the possibility of being killed by people who have minimal skill, little-to-no training and who may be working in very basic conditions. </p>
<p>As we have seen <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s4112678.htm">in the Middle East</a>, not all exported Australian animals make it to a slaughterhouse. </p>
<p>Yet, even if Australian animals do find themselves in the most modern Chinese slaughterhouse they will die in a country with zero rules prohibiting animal cruelty. If we think prohibitions against cruelty serve a purpose, this should be a troubling scenario.</p>
<p>I’m a strict vegetarian. I’m not for killing cows. But if I were an Australian cow, and I were to be killed, I would prefer to be killed in Australia than to take my chances in China. </p>
<p>I don’t think China is a good place for cows, particularly Australian cattle. Australian animal welfare laws are far from perfect, but at least they exist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan O'Sullivan has received funding from Voiceless.
Sections of this article are based on an article co-authored with Dr. Yangzi Sima. It is currently being prepared for peer review. </span></em></p>The number of animals exported live out of Australia is set to increase as Australia prepares to enter into a A$1 billion trade agreement with China. Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce has claimed up to…Siobhan O'Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/278052014-07-11T06:17:53Z2014-07-11T06:17:53ZTighter rules mean Brazil is now kicking goals on animal welfare<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53598/original/67t5f8rq-1405050976.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C9%2C2026%2C1517&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's cattle herd is the world's second-biggest - and welfare standards are on the up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABezerros_de_IATF.jpg">Zeloneto/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Brazil’s footballers have failed spectacularly to live up to expectations, there are other areas where the country is quietly exceeding them. Perhaps surprisingly, Brazil’s rapidly improving animal welfare standards put several more developed countries to shame.</p>
<p>When we think of Brazil and animals, we might picture huge cattle herds and the resulting <a href="http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_destruction.html">deforestation of the Amazon</a>. Yet Brazil is ahead of other livestock-producing countries such as Australia, at least as far as animal welfare legislation and regulation are concerned. This is a pretty damning indictment of Australia.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/text.jsp?file_id=218270">Brazil’s Federal Constitution of 1988</a> dedicates an entire chapter to the protection of the country’s fauna and flora, and <a href="http://www.animallaw.info/nonus/articles/ovbrazil.htm">establishes the legal standards for environmental protection</a>. Ten years after the Constitution was written, the Environmental Crimes Law was enacted to criminalise environmental damage, and prevent cruelty to domestic animals and wildlife.</p>
<p>The Constitution says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All have the right to an ecologically balanced environment. [sic] which is an asset of common use and essential to a healthy quality of life, and both the Government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations… In order to ensure the effectiveness of this right, it is incumbent upon the Government to: … protect the fauna and the flora, with prohibition, in the manner prescribed by law, of all practices which represent a risk to their ecological function, cause the extinction of species or subject animals to cruelty. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Contrast that with the <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution">Australian Constitution</a>, which does not mention flora and fauna or the environment (although <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-australias-biodiversity-be-written-into-the-constitution-23986">perhaps it should</a>).</p>
<p>Based on its constitution, Brazil’s Supreme Court has banned cruel practices such as cock fighting and the <a href="http://www.animallaw.info/nonus/articles/ovbrazil.htm">Oxen Festival</a>, a tradition that involved crowds chasing an ox through the streets while beating him with sticks, knives, whips and stones.</p>
<h2>Livestock welfare</h2>
<p>Brazil has the second-largest cattle herd in the world (behind India), of 187 million animals. About 600,000 cattle are <a href="http://www.wellard.com.au/home/global/americas.html">exported</a> each year, mainly to Venezuela (92%) and Lebanon (5%). Like Australia, Brazil’s live export industry has imposed cruelty and suffering on animals, most infamously in 2012 on board the <a href="http://www.beefcentral.com/live-export/animal-groups-ramp-up-anti-live-export-campaigns">Gracia Del Mar</a>, where more than 2,700 cattle died in the heat after the vessel had been refused permission to unload in several ports in the Middle East.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.econwelfare.eu/publications/EconWelfareD1.2Report_update_Nov2010.pdf">European Commission report</a> ranked Australia and Brazil in the same category for livestock welfare: both slightly below European Union standards. But unlike Australia, all major livestock animals in Brazil are covered by national legislation, whereas Australia has voluntary national codes of practice, and only legislates for livestock welfare at state and territory level. </p>
<p>Brazil’s agriculture ministry works closely with the <a href="http://www.worldanimalprotection.org.au">World Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals</a> (WSPCA), to provide <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1907e/i1907e00.pdf">animal welfare training for veterinarians</a> and to improve slaughter methods. A WSPCA <a href="http://www.uncsd2012.org/content/documents/Sao%20Marcelo%20Cattle_FINAL.PDF">case study</a> shows how animal welfare is increasing Brazil’s beef cattle productivity without the need to increase the land area used.</p>
<p>The government also provides <a href="http://www.hsi.org/news/press_releases/2014/05/brazilian-government-expands-animal-welfare-credit-052014.html">R1.7 billion (A$815 million) in loans</a> to improve welfare, for example by phasing out the use of intensive confinement systems in factory farming. </p>
<h2>In the lab</h2>
<p>Brazil is rapidly making ground in terms of animal welfare in the lab. Since 2009, all aspects of animal experimentation have been regulated by federal law, and all educational centres or labs that use animals now have to have an ethics committee. In contrast, Australia has a <a href="http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines/publications/ea28">Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes</a> which also requires ethics committees, but much of what is recommended in the code is voluntary. </p>
<p>In 2011, the Brazilian government set up the <a href="http://www.altex.ch/resources/raltex_2011_4_370_376_News2.pdf">Brazilian Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods</a>, which looks for alternative, non-animal research methods. In doing this it has joined the ranks of the <a href="http://www.alttox.org/ttrc/us/validation-centers.html">United States</a>, <a href="http://www.eurotox.com/ecvam">Europe</a>, <a href="http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=62A650A4-DD4B-D0A8-C26C7AE0A57F82E8">Canada, Japan and South Korea</a>, all of which have similar government-sponsored centres. Australia doesn’t.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the state of São Paulo <a href="http://www.hsi.org/news/press_releases/2014/01/saopaulo-cosmetics-testing-ban-012414.html">banned</a> animal testing for cosmetics. More recently, Brazil’s Congress <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monica-engebretson/brazil-to-end-most-animal_b_5452371.html">voted</a> to end animal testing for most cosmetics, in favour of internationally approved non-animal methods.</p>
<p>In Australia such prohibitions do not exist, although it is claimed the practice has been largely discontinued. But only the Greens have drafted legislation to <a href="http://www.thescavenger.net/social-justice-to-all/social-justice-for-animals/945-is-this-the-end-for-animal-testing-for-cosmetics.html">formally ban animal cosmetics testing</a>. That bill is waiting to be presented to Parliament.</p>
<h2>Good intentions</h2>
<p>One could argue that legislation and regulation are only useful if they are enforced. Does animal welfare legislation in Brazil lead to greater welfare than the mostly voluntary codes in Australia? We don’t know for sure.</p>
<p>Of course, Brazil is likely to face many challenges in translating good legal intentions into practice. The existence of a range of <a href="http://brazil.angloinfo.com/family/pets/animal-organisations/">animal protection and welfare organisations</a> indicates that animal welfare in Brazil has some way to go. </p>
<p>However, setting legal standards is always better than leaving animal welfare to industry self-regulation. Other countries, which prefer to let the market handle things, would do well to take note.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27805/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monika Merkes is a member of the committee of management of Humane Research Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Buttrose is on the management committee of Humane Research Australia.</span></em></p>While Brazil’s footballers have failed spectacularly to live up to expectations, there are other areas where the country is quietly exceeding them. Perhaps surprisingly, Brazil’s rapidly improving animal…Monika Merkes, Honorary Associate, Australian Institute for Primary Care & Ageing, La Trobe UniversityRob Buttrose, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272782014-05-29T20:41:19Z2014-05-29T20:41:19ZLive animal export rules are useless without enforcement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49770/original/xz8jp4pg-1401348636.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After a tip-off from an Egyptian vet, Animals Australia sparked a government investigation into what an industry leader described as "horrific" slaughtering practices in Egypt last year. Tougher rules have now been promised.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.animalsaustralia-media.org/upload/photos/egypt-live-export-investigation_2013/">Animals Australia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia looks set to resume exporting live sheep to Iran, after <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-28/iran-australia-livex-agreement/5484528">Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce</a> this week flagged the end of a 40-year ban following <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/australia-live-sheep-exports-iran">Iran’s Islamic revolution</a>. </p>
<p>Flanked by the chief executives of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council and the Sheepmeat Council of Australia, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-28/iran-australia-livex-agreement/5484528">Joyce stressed that</a> the deal would be a win, win, win: good for Australian sheep producers; good for the people of Iran; and – he stressed – good for animal welfare.</p>
<p>But is the Agriculture Minister right? Given controversies over Australian cattle being <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20110530/cattle/">violently mistreated in Indonesian</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/live-exports-to-egypt-suspended-20130504-2izb0.html">Egyptian abattoirs</a>, can Australians be confident about the welfare of animals shipped overseas?</p>
<p>Judging from the Department of Agriculture’s own figures, there are good reasons to be concerned about how well Australia’s animal welfare rules will be enforced under this new deal.</p>
<h2>Live export rules</h2>
<p>Australia’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-28/barnaby-joyce-seeks-to-restart-saudi-arabian-live-sheep-trade/5414888">live export welfare regulations</a> are often referred to as “ESCAS”, which stands for the <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/information-exporters-industry/escas">Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System</a>. ESCAS has four pillars: </p>
<ul>
<li>adherence to World Organisation for Animal Health animal welfare standards</li>
<li>exporter control of the supply chain, including at the point of slaughter</li>
<li>a traceable supply chain </li>
<li>and an independent audit of the supply chain. </li>
</ul>
<p>The Agriculture Minister said that once feedlot and abattoir facilities in Iran won approval under Australia’s ESCAS welfare rules, exports could resume. And, he said, that would mean improved animal welfare outcomes overall.</p>
<p>Curiously, while Joyce was able to produce two industry representatives <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/226703764/Untitled">to appear at his media conference</a>, no comparable representative was there to comment on his animal welfare claims. Notably absent was either the RSPCA or <a href="http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/press_releases.php?release=205">Animals Australia</a>, two well-known, well-respected and highly politically-engaged animal welfare organisations. </p>
<p>Without Animals Australia, the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-30/doco-reveals-australian-cattle-tortured-overseas/2737644">mistreatment of Australian livestock</a> in both Indonesia and Egypt would not have been uncovered at all.</p>
<p>Only a year ago, the live cattle trade to Egypt was voluntarily halted after what Australian Livestock Exporters Council chief executive Alison Penfold described as <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/live-exports-to-egypt-suspended-20130504-2izb0.html#ixzz334w0P56v">“horrific” acts of “outrageous cruelty”</a> against Australian cattle. </p>
<p>That came about after an <a href="http://banliveexport.com/features/egyptian-vet-speaks-out.php">Egyptian veterinarian</a> contacted Animals Australia last year, concerned about the methods being used to slaughter Australian cattle, <a href="http://banliveexport.com/egypt">graphic footage</a> of which triggered an <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/about/media-centre/dept-releases/2014/egypt-livestock-investigation-report-released">Australian government investigation</a> that found “one abattoir did not conform to international standards for animal welfare”.</p>
<p>The ban was <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/advisory-notices/2014/2014-02">lifted in March this year</a>, with Egyptian abattoirs now working to comply with the ESCAS rules.</p>
<h2>How well does ESCAS protect animal welfare?</h2>
<p>Putting aside some of those recent controversies, one animal welfare concern worth noting is that some animals travel better by boat than others – and sheep are not natural seafaring animals.</p>
<p>Every six months, the minister must table in Parliament a report from the department that includes livestock mortalities on every sea voyage. The table below summarises those reports to Parliament, showing that 14,067 or 0.74% of the sheep exported in Australia’s live trade died at sea – an improvement on the massive losses a decade ago, but still a high toll.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=133&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=133&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49756/original/ykmyqkj9-1401343352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Live sheep exports, 2000 to 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/regulatory-framework/compliance-investigations/investigations-mortalities">Department of Agriculture</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, in 1985, an Australian Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare conducted an inquiry into the live animal export industry. Its report was not complimentary. It included <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-live-export-of-animals-will-always-be-a-bloody-business-10547">the observation that</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if a decision were to be made on the future of the trade purely on animal welfare grounds, there is enough evidence to stop the trade. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, this week Joyce said Australia is now <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-28/iran-australia-livex-agreement/5484528">“leading the world in animal husbandry”</a>, thanks to our ESCAS rules.</p>
<p>So just how well is ESCAS performing? As any first year legal student can tell you, laws without an accompanying enforcement mechanism are of little value.</p>
<p>Yet enforcement – or making sure there is an “independent audit” of the supply chain in the importing country, just as the ESCAS rules promise – appears to be a big challenge for Australia’s Department of Agriculture.</p>
<h2>Who’s really policing our animal welfare rules?</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/regulatory-framework/compliance-investigations/investigations-regulatory-compliance">Department’s website records 34 complaints</a> between February 2012 and May 20 this year about live animal welfare in relation to live animal exports. </p>
<p>Of those 34, 19 were made by Animals Australia; seven by exporters; three by the public; two by the RSPCA; two by an external party; and one by the media. </p>
<p>Based on this, Animals Australia appears to be doing a disproportionate amount of unpaid enforcement work on behalf of the Australian government, the Australian people and industry. And you have to ask: what exactly is the Department of Agriculture itself doing to enforce the ESCAS system?</p>
<p>Those figures, and the fact that “horrific” mistreatment has been uncovered by animal activists rather than by officials, raise the question of who’s really policing these standards. If the federal government is serious about ensuring our animal welfare standards are the best in the world, perhaps it could consider funding Animals Australia to continue upholding the “independent audit” fourth pillar of the ESCAS system.</p>
<p>While the exclusion of any kind of animal welfare organisation from the minister’s press conference was disappointing, both <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-29/nrn-iran-livex-reax/5486516">the RSPCA and Animals Australia</a> have since made their views clear.</p>
<p>“The government is talking about opening a new market when there is no one even policing the old markets,” Animals Australia said in a statement.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-29/nrn-iran-livex-reax/5486516">RSPCA Australia chief executive Heather Neil warned</a> that ESCAS is not a guarantee that animals will be treated well.</p>
<p>“I think there’s enough examples with ESCAS going terribly wrong and the government doing really very little in order to bring exporters into line and to take away their licences, when they’ve shown time and time again to be getting it wrong.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan O'Sullivan has received funding from Voiceless</span></em></p>Australia looks set to resume exporting live sheep to Iran, after Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce this week flagged the end of a 40-year ban following Iran’s Islamic revolution. Flanked by the chief…Siobhan O'Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198042013-11-04T02:58:30Z2013-11-04T02:58:30ZCan live animal export ever be humane?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34301/original/t7srkphb-1383522054.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Once animals leave Australia, we have limited control over what happens to them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Animals Australia)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3880669.htm">video footage of animal cruelty</a> kicked off yet another live export controversy. The footage appeared to show not just confronting and inappropriate animal treatment, but the likely movement of Australian-exported sheep outside designated buyers and slaughter plants.</p>
<p>The government has responded by expressing support for live export, coupled with a promise to investigate and deal with any breaches in the ESCAS - the <a href="https://theconversation.com/assessing-australias-regulation-of-live-animal-exports-16427">export supply chain assurance scheme</a>.</p>
<p>Confronted with repeated incidents over the past few years, the Australian public may well ask, “Why hasn’t this been fixed?” and “Can live export ever be made humane?”. </p>
<p>Live export presents a singularly difficult problem for ensuring animal welfare.</p>
<p>It is generally accepted that the longer and more complex the journey an animal makes, the greater the risk to its welfare. That’s not to say that the welfare of an animal for a longer journey necessarily has to be worse, but the risks tend to be greater and need more complex management.</p>
<p>The most critical reason why it is difficult to ensure animal welfare in live export is because exported animals are beyond Australia’s sovereign control. They are beyond our laws and our capacity for enforcement. </p>
<p>The Australian government has tried to address this hurdle by negotiating Memorandums of Understanding with importing countries. In addition, the export supply chain assurance scheme was developed to achieve animal welfare control. It provides regulatory oversight of the contractual arrangements that exist down the supply chain, and limits Australian-derived animals to certain buyers and slaughter places.</p>
<p>But live export is difficult to “fix” because the direction of animal welfare concern is completely separate to the direction the animals travel as they are bought and sold through the export process. </p>
<p>In other circumstances, many farm animal welfare issues are eventually fixed by market-based change. For example, consumers start demanding animal welfare attributes like sow-stall-free pork, and the market provides them. As a result, animal welfare improves. </p>
<p>Live export presents a unique problem, because the location of greatest animal welfare concern is the Australian public, and the Australian public has absolutely no market power in the equation. We’re not the ones buying the cows.</p>
<p>In making these points, it is fair to acknowledge that importing countries have animal health and welfare requirements. It is just that these requirements may be different to what the public in this country expects for Australian animals.</p>
<p>Animal welfare in live export has proved difficult to solve because of the complex risks involved, the inability to enforce Australian laws beyond our borders, and the need to improve animal welfare by “pushing” standards down the supply chain, rather than having them “pulled through” by buyer demand. </p>
<p>The key question remains - can live export ever be humane?</p>
<p>The industry has improved aspects over the past 20 years. There have been declines in published mortality rates on ships, and the industry has instituted training programs for animal handlers in importing countries. </p>
<p>But while live export continues, adverse animal welfare incidents will come to light. One simple reason for this is that no system or level of legal oversight can guarantee that nothing bad will happen. Even in Australia we can’t stamp out incidents of animal cruelty altogether.</p>
<p>It is also difficult to guarantee that no Australian animals will be bought or sold outside the designated supply chains. But if each instance is properly addressed and fixed, then hopefully the prevalence of leakage and the incidence of animal mistreatment should decline. </p>
<p>Will that be enough? </p>
<p>Essentially, it seems that live export will be humane enough for some people, not humane enough for others, and will never be humane in the assessment of animal welfare organisations. The relative proportions of Australians in these three categories will depend not just on the frequency and level of problems, but on the efforts of government and industry to improve animal welfare, and the transparency of their results.</p>
<p>When animal welfare incidents happen, live export industry advocates commonly highlight Australian industry’s efforts to improve animal welfare in destination countries. They point out that other countries’ exporting industries do not have similar programs. </p>
<p>These statements, while legitimate, are unlikely to convince the public to accept the industry in the face of occasional but ongoing incidents. </p>
<p>A more sustainable approach requires not just a stated commitment to improvement, but also transparency of both process and results for animal welfare performance. Both have to be seen to improve. Currently, the public is left with the impression of a repeating story of “We have it all fixed now”, followed by animal welfare activist footage indicating that all is definitely not fixed.</p>
<p>Government support for the live export industry seems firm. The key issues will be improving the welfare of animals and trying to limit the damage to the political capital of not just the live export industry, but also Australia’s livestock farming industries in general. </p>
<p>One day, events may arise that require significant public investment and support. It may be an emergency animal disease, environmental policies, or terms of trade that drastically damage the industry’s viability. It may not be a direct trade-off, but one day Australia’s farmers may need their political capital and the residual goodwill of the Australian public more than they need the live export industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Fisher occasionally consults to the Meat and Livestock Australia on issues of animal transport and live export. His research is funded by MLA, Dairy Australia, the Victorian Government, and the Federal Department of Agriculture.</span></em></p>Last week, video footage of animal cruelty kicked off yet another live export controversy. The footage appeared to show not just confronting and inappropriate animal treatment, but the likely movement…Andrew Fisher, Professor of Cattle & Sheep Production Medicine, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/181472013-09-17T04:41:48Z2013-09-17T04:41:48ZIndonesians can buy our land but shouldn’t ship live cattle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31388/original/t3cc7k8y-1379314396.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indonesian ownership of Australian cattle is a step in the right direction for both countries, but welfare still needs work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australians should not be alarmed but pleased at the current Indonesian proposal to <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/13/aust-cattle-industry-welcomes-indonesian-plans">invest in cattle production</a> in the north of Australia. It demonstrates a renewed confidence in Australia’s ability to provide cattle for the Indonesian market, currently under-supplied following the quotas imposed on imports after the 2011 Indonesian slaughter expose. </p>
<p>It also shows the Indonesians have plenty of good business sense: to deny Australia, one of the largest beef exporters in the world and right on their doorstep, access to their markets would be financial suicide. The nearest alternative major exporters are thousands of miles away, in the horn of Africa. </p>
<p>Buying Australian properties when prices are depressed but demand for beef in Indonesia is growing is not just a smart financial move. It could also encourage the Australian government to restore relationships with its major trading partner and neighbour. </p>
<p>And Indonesia could claim increasing self-sufficiency in beef production, a goal that has been a growing focus since the export ban of 2011. The property purchase by the Indonesian government will only have a small impact on their imports of live cattle, but it could point the way to greater investment by Indonesian entrepreneurs. </p>
<p>The property is expected to use breeder cattle in Australia to produce young cows for shipping to Indonesian feedlots. Until a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-22/aaco-confirms-abattoir-will-be-built-near-darwin-donald-mcgauch/4905362">meatworks is built in the north</a>, it will need a live export trade. Most surveys suggest that the Australian public do not support live export. </p>
<p>The failure of animal welfare activists to stop it has shown how determined the government is to continue the trade, but with increased monitoring of the cattle. Just before the election, Kevin Rudd visited Indonesia to encourage the prime minister to accept more Australian cattle. </p>
<p>However, science is increasingly supporting the activists’ cause, demonstrating that livestock experience considerable stresses on the ships. </p>
<p>Ammonia is given off from the excreta of animals. It accumulates through the voyage, irritating the mouth, nose and lungs of the animals. </p>
<p>For a recently-published study, <a href="http://www.journalofanimalscience.org/content/91/9/4406.abstract">Dr Mat Pines and I</a> travelled to the Middle East on a ship loaded with sheep, measuring their behaviour in high and low ammonia sections of a ship. In the high-level sections, sheep ate, chewed the cud and lay down less. They displayed signs of stress. Follow-up studies confirmed ammonia reduces sheep’s feed intake and weight and also produced adverse reactions in cattle. </p>
<p>More recently, in the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics at the University of Queensland, veterinarian <a href="http://www.applied-ethology.org/hres/ISAE%202013%209789086867790isae2013-e.pdf">Eduardo Santurtun and coworkers</a> found ship movement increases stress in livestock. They found higher and more variable heart rates, and that sheep had to brace themselves against the sides of their enclosure to keep themselves upright. </p>
<p>Whatever we think about the slaughter practices in Indonesia and the government’s attempts to monitor and improve them, the fact remains that ship journeys are stressful for livestock. Animal welfare is sacrificed in the name of providing a fresh product for the Indonesian market. </p>
<p>Indonesians producing cattle in Australia would be bound to Australian standards, both in this country and during the ship journey. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/assessing-australias-regulation-of-live-animal-exports-16427">Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme</a> the government introduced after the 2011 live export troubles aims to guarantee compliance with World Animal Health Organisation standards and the traceability of Australian cattle. </p>
<p>However, these standards, even if they are enforced, are not enough to guarantee the welfare of cattle born into the system. They must ensure basic animal rights are observed, such as stunning before slaughter and avoiding unnecessarily long journeys in stressful conditions. As the sea journey is inherently stressful, everything must be done to persuade the Indonesian people to eat beef that has been killed in Australia. </p>
<p>Barnaby Joyce, as the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/168478869/Tony-Abbott-s-first-Ministry">new agriculture minister</a>, will try to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/12/indonesian-beef-plan">stop Indonesia buying land</a>, but not because he is concerned about animal welfare during live export. </p>
<p>He argues that it is a food security issue, yet Australia has no problem meeting the food needs of its citizens. Even if overseas ownership spread rapidly, in the event of any threat to security, land owned by foreigners from hostile countries would quickly be nationalised. </p>
<p>In an unstable world, particularly as tension rises between Muslim and Christian countries, we need to welcome every opportunity to forge strong links with our Muslim neighbour. Australia has shown itself to be a modern country in embracing multiculturalism. Will it see the opportunities offered by welcoming its neighbours to help it utilise one of its most precious commodities – land? </p>
<p>In this era of globalisation, it seems inevitable that rapidly growing needy nations will buy into those nations with surpluses or desirable products. The Russians buy houses in the heart of London, the Chinese buy mines in Africa. </p>
<p>Why shouldn’t the Indonesians buy land in the north of Australia?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips is on the Scientific Committee of Voiceless, is a Director of Minding Animals International and has received funds from Meat and Livestock Australia, Voiceless, Humane Slaughter Association, Humane Society International and RSPCA Australia for livestock research. .</span></em></p>Australians should not be alarmed but pleased at the current Indonesian proposal to invest in cattle production in the north of Australia. It demonstrates a renewed confidence in Australia’s ability to…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164272013-07-29T04:32:03Z2013-07-29T04:32:03ZAssessing Australia’s regulation of live animal exports<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28212/original/q9f2q3dy-1375059660.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The live export watchdog has relied on animal welfare groups to make complaints.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dan Peled</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Four Corners first <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20110530/cattle/">broke</a> the story of cruelty to Australian cows in Indonesian abattoirs, the Australian government initiated an “acceptable Exporter Supply Chain Assurance system” to better manage live exports. That system included a complaints mechanism, which has now been active for 18 months. So how many complaints have been investigated, and what results have we seen? </p>
<p>The assurance system is intended to allow the department to respond to animal welfare problems associated with live animal exports. In theory, the system should mean that the government never again has to suspend the entire live export trade, as has happened in the past.</p>
<p>The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/compliance-and-investigations">explains</a> that exporters, auditors and “third parties” can all report breaches under the system. Where the breach is considered to have merit it is investigated further.</p>
<p>The deparment’s level of transparency is to be commended. It lists all the complaints it has received and who they were made by. It also provides <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/investigation-report">an overview</a> of the nature of the complaint and the outcome of the investigation. It is rare to see a government department engaging stakeholders to this extent. On the issue of public accountability and engagement, the department scores 10 out of 10.</p>
<p>Looking at the complaints and investigations matrix on the department’s website, the first thing that stands out is the extent to which the department is dependent on third sector agencies and private citizens to bring matters of concerns to its attention. Of the 16 complaints lodged, 12 were lodge by animal charities, one by “a member of the public”, and one by an “external party”. Two were cases of self-reporting by exporters. Of the two cases self-reported by exporters, one was the now infamous Pakistani slaughter case that received such media attention that it is hard to image a scenario in which the incident could have gone un-reported.</p>
<p>In 18 months, not a single breach has been identified by the department itself. This is despite “report from auditor” being one of the three means by which the department expects to learn of breaches.</p>
<p>With 87.5% of complaints coming from animal groups or the community, two questions come immediately to mind. Why are animal groups eight times more likely to spot a problem with live animal exports than those people who are actively engaged in the live animal export trade? And why is the department entirely unable to identify problems itself?</p>
<p>Of the 16 complaints lodged with the department, six are marked as “investigation complete” and a further two are marked as “assessment completed”. Assessment completed means that the original complaint was found to be without merit and no investigation was undertaken. One of those complaints was lodged by Animals Australia. The other was by an “external party”.</p>
<p>Of those that have been investigated the results are mixed. The outcome of the investigations are often complex. In some cases you get the sense that probably animals suffered, but no technical breach of the system framework was identifiable. In other cases, animal suffering is confirmed, but the picture is too complex to know who is to blame. For example, in response to a complaint by Animals Australia, <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/biosecurity/export/live-animals/livestock/compliance-and-investigations/report-into-complaint-from-animals-australia-kuwait">the department concluded</a> that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The investigation found that non-compliance with ESCAS requirements occurred and that this non compliance resulted in animal welfare outcomes not consistent with OIE recommendations. The investigation was unable to determine which licensed exporter exported the sheep.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the bureaucrats have now had a good go at Australia’s live animal export trade. Is the world a better place as a result? If you value access to knowledge, the answer is probably “yes”. If you value the systematic reporting of breaches, then you have to conclude that the system would be a complete failure without Animals Australia and the RSPCA, both of which are charities and both of which depend on donations for their operations. Finally, if you like to see someone being punished when animal welfare is compromised, then ESCAS is probably not for you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan O'Sullivan has previously been a member of both the RSPCA NSW and Animals Australia. She is currently not a member of either. </span></em></p>When Four Corners first broke the story of cruelty to Australian cows in Indonesian abattoirs, the Australian government initiated an “acceptable Exporter Supply Chain Assurance system” to better manage…Siobhan O'Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139822013-05-07T02:10:10Z2013-05-07T02:10:10ZCattle slaughter in topsy turvy land<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23295/original/2m43j4z8-1367886307.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cruel slaughter of Australian animals in countries where abattoir workers face poor economic conditions can only be stopped with the long-term ban of live exports.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Joe Shlabotnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, Jo, one of the child adventurers, has a spell cast upon him that forces him to walk upside down on his hands in Topsy Turvy land. Jo survives the ordeal as most humans would. But in the less than magic faraway land of Egypt, recent footage of Australian cattle being turned upside down before slaughter is far more concerning.</p>
<p>This latest <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3753039.htm">distressing footage</a> from Animals Australia of cruelty to cattle being slaughtered in Egypt has confirmed that abattoir exposures are here to stay, or at least as long as Australia continues to export live cattle to far distant developing countries.</p>
<p>On this occasion, cattle are shown being inverted 180 degrees before the lethal cut to their throat, the knife cut that all cattle must die from in Egyptian abattoirs. The argument in favour of this cruel practice is that the knife cut is easier and safer in a downward motion, rather than an upward cut to a standing animal.</p>
<p>In cattle the position of the internal organs, in particular the rumen, means that inversion will result in severe distress. Unlike horses, they cannot even lie on their sides for any period of time. The respiratory system is the most affected, with potential inhalation of digesta and blood. Even if we do not yet fully understand its implications for the animals, the impact of the evident fear that inversion causes cannot be ignored.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/fawc/files/Cattle-inversion-for-religious-slaughter.pdf">Additional problems</a> include inadequate restraint, pressure on internal organs and prolongation of the already stressful slaughter process. One of the animals in the Animals Australia footage escapes and takes an agonising 90 seconds to be eventually apprehended, despite its head hanging off following the knife cut. </p>
<p><a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=1BB4E8C22C558261660414F23E44397D.journals?fromPage=online&aid=4791024">The difference</a> between Egyptian cattle, that are led to the fields and back daily, and the Australian cattle, which are only handled a few times a year, cannot be underestimated. Egyptian slaughtermen are well aware that the Australian cattle react in a nervous and unpredictable manner to their movements.</p>
<p>If the job actually is easier with the animal inverted – and there is no evidence that it is – this is an argument for better training of the slaughterman and sharper knives, not inversion. Stunning would obviate any of the above concerns, and is not contrary to Koranic teaching if used concurrently with the knife cut or just after.</p>
<p>If all of this doesn’t seem like déjà vu, cast your mind back to the ban on cattle export to Egypt in 2006. Then, the Egyptian slaughtermen were found to be cutting the tendons of the legs of Australian cattle prior to slaughter, because the cattle were able to be slaughtered more safely after being incapacitated in this way.</p>
<p>Although illegal in the UK and Denmark, livestock inversion for slaughter remains legal in the European Union and is not condemned by the <a href="http://www.oie.int/">World Animal Health Organisation</a> (OIE), the only body to set international guidelines for livestock slaughter.</p>
<p>The Australian government has not been able to develop an <a href="http://www.daff.gov.au/aqis/export/live-animals/livestock/escas">Exporter Supply Chain Assurance Scheme</a> (ESCAS) agreement with Egypt, such as has been implemented in some Asian countries. Through ESCAS, the Australian government hopes to ensure that animals are handled in accordance with OIE guidelines, that they are traceable through the supply chain and that independent audits are conducted to verify compliance.</p>
<p>Although this scheme has clear benefits, its legality is questionable; and indeed the scheme has been rejected by Saudi Arabia, at least. One of the principal objections is on the grounds of fair trade: under WTO agreement, participating countries cannot introduce a trade barrier on animal welfare grounds. Any requirement by ESCAS that animals are only allowed to enter the country if OIE animal welfare guidelines are followed is just such an act of discrimination.</p>
<p>However, the main issue is much simpler than this, and in any case the WTO control of trade is often flouted. It is the poor economic status of Egyptian workers, and in particular abattoir workers, which does not afford them the level of concern for their animals that we have in the Western world.</p>
<p>Western abattoir workers are given the luxury of protection from the violent protestation of the animals during the slaughter process by stunning them beforehand, as well as enclosing the animal in a safe crush during the process and having an orderly line of cattle to kill.</p>
<p>This Australian government renewed ban on export of cattle to Egypt will cost the industry dearly. The collapse of the Egyptian market in 2003-2004, before the Indonesian trade grew rapidly, was highly damaging to the trade and left producers with an uncertain market. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/23294/original/twb42vrr-1367885715.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ban on live exports to Egypt is likely to be lifted as the industry-damaging Indonesian ban was in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Indonesian trade is still badly affected by the 2011 ban, with the country vowing to build up its own industry rather than accept large numbers of cattle from Australia. Only major shortages in the Indonesian markets have brought a temporary reprieve. Prices in Egypt are traditionally higher than many other countries; hence the financial impact will be even greater than expected.</p>
<p>These short-term bans are becoming a feature of Australian government response to video releases by activist groups. The time for government-approved resumption of the trade appears to be about 12-18 months, but quite likely depends on the financial impact to the producers and the vehemence of their reactions.</p>
<p>The solution, which is so clearly in the best interest of Australia’s livestock producers, is a long-term ban, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-ten-year-plan-to-phase-out-live-animal-exports-9870">phased in</a> over a period of five years. This would give the trade the time to adapt: build new meatworks in the north of the country, open up new markets to developed countries wanting our high quality product and develop the supply chains internationally. The alternative is the death by a thousand cuts, hopefully in the supine position. </p>
<p>Throughout history humans have reserved upside down crucifixion and burial for people that are not worthy; let’s at least give cattle the dignity of a respectful end to their life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips consults to Voiceless. He has recently received funding from MAF, RSPCA, Voiceless, the Humane Slaughter Association and Humane Society International. He is affiliated with the Queensland Animal Welfare Advisory Committee.</span></em></p>In Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, Jo, one of the child adventurers, has a spell cast upon him that forces him to walk upside down on his hands in Topsy Turvy land. Jo survives the ordeal as most humans…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/114792013-01-08T19:24:08Z2013-01-08T19:24:08ZAnimal welfare researchers must be honest about motivations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/19007/original/mpkv4v3n-1357530063.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The decisions we make about animal welfare are important; even more so if we're welfare researchers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jannes Pockele</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many people take the Christmas and New Year period as a time to ponder how they can be a better person. We make resolutions about eating better, doing exercise, being kinder or slowing down.</p>
<p>We all know that the way we live our lives is very important to our own physical, mental and spiritual health, and that of society in general. Christianity - like many other religions - advocates that we should search for the truth about the impact of our actions on ourselves and others throughout our lives.</p>
<p>Escaping the truth about the world that we live in should be far from any scientist’s mind. But 2012 was marked for me by some disturbing evidence from my research group that many scientists are doing just that. </p>
<p>In a study of how scientists report animal welfare research, Agnes van der Schott <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-012-9433-8?no-access=true">found convincing proof</a> that they are greatly influenced by the funding agency.</p>
<p>Scientists working on animal industry-funded studies are, it appears, more likely to report that new methods to improve welfare did not work. Presumably this is because they are likely to increase costs to animal producers. In contrast to this, scientists working on studies funded by animal advocacy groups are more likely to report welfare benefits.</p>
<p>These findings are hardly surprising, given the pressure on scientists to get large grants. But the study, together with similar issues <a href="https://theconversation.com/remove-industry-bias-from-clinical-trials-before-its-too-late-11242">detected in the medical sciences</a>, emphasise that we must have better control of the ways in which we work towards an improved understanding of today’s problems.</p>
<p>Scientists should have ethical training, and not just in their initial degrees but throughout their career. Research organisations should not allow their scientists to accept grants that come with conditions about only reporting results that are favourable to the funding agency. Journal editors should use peer review and their own judgement to screen out unjustified claims by scientists.</p>
<p>The main role of my research group is to expose the truth about animal welfare issues. A major issue in 2012 was the export of livestock from our shores to distant lands. However, as well as the biological response to shipment, it is hard to ignore the political element of this trade.</p>
<p>One of Australia’s biggest problems these days, as a former isolated country that is increasingly thrust into the melee of international activity, is its relations with its neighbours. In 2011 this surfaced prominently with the cancellation of cattle exports to Indonesia. But the knock-on effects on relations with Indonesia were not largely felt until 2012.</p>
<p>Drastically reducing the import quota, rejecting our shipments of breeder cattle, and expanding their own capacity to produce homegrown beef, were all part of the Indonesian Government’s eventual response. That response was designed to punish the Australian government for their action.</p>
<p>Predictably the livstock traders have turned to other countries to accept these animals that are surplus to Australia’s requirements. They plan to <a href="http://www.efeedlink.com/contents/12-28-2012/819ecd0e-deaf-46c3-8703-8472f84e5bff-a001.html">build feedlots in China</a>, for example. Meanwhile the animal welfare advocacy supporters have exposed welfare issues in abattoirs around the world that take Australian livestock.</p>
<p>My own research group has restricted its focus to the biological response of animals to long distance ship transport. We have obtained evidence of welfare impacts of the ship’s motion on sheep behaviour, and have had increasingly strong proof of adverse effects on sheep and cattle <a href="http://www.journalofanimalscience.org/content/90/5/1562">of the ammonia</a> that comes from their excreta.</p>
<p>Australians are becoming more annd more aware of the impacts our livestock export industry has on the well-being of animals. We also hear much about the damage that using our precious agricultural land for beef and sheep production can do. But how many of us tucked into a joint over Christmas? </p>
<p>Our actions matter. One of the main ways in which we can individually make a difference in the problems of global warming, food insecurity in developing countries, and improving human health is to eat ethically.</p>
<p>We should all remember that the way we live our lives matters. It affects our health, our environment, our wellbeing and that of those around us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips consults to Voiceless and RSPCA, Australia. He and his students have received funding from Meat and Livestock Australia, Voiceless, RSPCA Australia, HSI, HSA. He is affiliated with LESAG, Qld AWAC and Minding Animals.</span></em></p>Many people take the Christmas and New Year period as a time to ponder how they can be a better person. We make resolutions about eating better, doing exercise, being kinder or slowing down. We all know…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98702012-10-07T19:33:54Z2012-10-07T19:33:54ZA ten-year plan to phase out live animal exports<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16173/original/t9dqc498-1349325218.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Phasing out live exports may be the only way to save Australia's northern cattle industry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Temporary bans on live cattle and sheep export have undermined confidence in the industry, driving property prices down and diminishing banks’ willingness to lend for long-term improvement. If the industry wants to avoid death by a thousand cuts, it must act now to phase out live export.</p>
<p>A phasing out of export of livestock for meat over the next ten years or so may be a necessity for a viable industry in the long term. It would require careful preparation and arrangements for compensation for those adversely affected.</p>
<h2>Welfare issues</h2>
<p>It is widely recognised that sending animals overseas to slaughter is not the only welfare problem. Indeed it is not even the most important welfare issue for livestock; good nutrition and veterinary care have a much greater impact over the animals’ lifetime. However, live export is a welfare issue that we can fix, and developing a long-term solution will be much better for producers than the repeated temporary bans invoked by government. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16178/original/6s5hj7s2-1349326313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia has little or no control over what happens to exported animals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Animals Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most producers care a great deal for their livestock, and many have been deeply disturbed to see how some of the animals that they so attentively nurtured are treated after they’ve left their property.</p>
<p>These welfare problems are not just the multiple stresses that animals are exposed to during the export process, but Australia’s lack of control of the transport and slaughter process after the animals have arrived at their destination port. Regulatory authorities also have little control over practices on the ships: the stockpeople, vets and crew are employed by the industry so there is no independent authority to oversee the process. In other animal-risk situations, such as abattoirs, government inspectors are present: the same should be true on live export boats.</p>
<h2>Markets for meat</h2>
<p>The long-term prospects for beef and sheep meat exports from Australia are good. Demand, especially for beef, is increasing as developing countries become more affluent and change to a Western style diet. This will continue while wealth in Eurasia and the Americas transitions from traditionally wealthy countries to those until recently considered poor. Opportunities for export from Australia to Asia are considerable because of the limited land available in Asia for livestock production.</p>
<p>Introducing a permanent ban over a long period would allow Australian producers to adapt their systems. Meatworks would have to be set up in the north of Australia. For many producers, live export is the only option because of the lack of northern abattoirs. It is not economic to truck cattle thousands of kilometres to the nearest abattoirs, Brisbane or Perth. Abattoirs existed in the north until the 1990s but were phased out as the live export trade grew.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16175/original/437vch4g-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demand for beef is increasing in developing nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pankaj Kaushal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Small-scale abattoirs handling some of the northern cattle cannot compete with the high prices paid for animals for live export. Several large-scale abattoirs handling most or all of the cattle would be required if live export is phased out; in fact, it is only if live export <em>is</em> phased out that they could be successful financially. The first is being built just south of Darwin and is expected to be finished next July. Each abattoir would employ several hundred people, including providing potential employment to disadvantaged indigenous communities.</p>
<p>New markets would have to be opened up, but some of the demand that has recently been met by sending live animals could be met by carcases. Ships would have to be adapted to take refrigerated cargo, but efficiency would be increased because they would only carry the consumable product. Carcase comprises approximately half of the weight of each animal, and only about one-half of the carcase is muscle tissue that is eaten. Transporting carcases is therefore cheaper than live animals.</p>
<p>In the short term, the prices that producers receive for their animals would probably fall, making it harder to provide the necessary feed and medications that ensure the welfare of livestock. In the long-term, however, strong world market prices for meat should be sufficient to sustain an efficient industry.</p>
<h2>A more diverse, stronger and kinder industry</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16174/original/8hhd5bwt-1349325237.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian producers could sell more expensive cuts, such as wagyu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">avlxyz/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exporting carcases rather than live animals would enable producers to grow the type of animal that their land can support. Rather than having to produce steers of less than 350kg for export from northern Australia to Indonesia, those with good quality land can grow their cattle to higher weights profitably at home. </p>
<p>A greater variety of production methods will be possible, to suit the many different markets around the world. There will be a market for animals at different stages of maturity, with different levels of marbling and subcutaneous fat. Carcases from high quality breeds like Angus and Charolais can be supplied to markets that pay a premium. </p>
<p>The market exposure and risk to producers will be reduced by diversifying the countries to which carcases are sent. Exposure and risk are both very apparent in the current situation where one country - Indonesia - dominates the market.</p>
<p>Australia can become a world animal welfare leader in its livestock production systems. Its outdoor environment offers a natural advantage. </p>
<p>People overseas are well aware of our live export issues. Addressing them before any more damage is done to the industry is vitally important.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips consults to Voiceless and RSPCA, Australia. He and his students have received funding from Meat and Livestock Australia, Voiceless, RSPCA Australia, HSI, HSA. He is affiliated with LESAG, Qld AWAC and Minding Animals</span></em></p>Temporary bans on live cattle and sheep export have undermined confidence in the industry, driving property prices down and diminishing banks’ willingness to lend for long-term improvement. If the industry…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95982012-09-19T20:43:18Z2012-09-19T20:43:18ZAnimal welfare: an urgent issue with a long, slow solution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15547/original/4hyvrhjf-1347858061.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Piecemeal solutions to welfare won't do - we need a long-term view.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Sanderson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The government has been plagued by animal welfare problems over the last two years. The biggest issue so far has been the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/live-exports">mistreatment of our livestock overseas</a>. </p>
<p>Most recently, two shipments of sheep to the Middle East were left stranded - they couldn’t unload because too many sheep had <a href="http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/sheep/8370.html">scabby mouth</a>. Another issue that has recently come to light is the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21912800">ammonia that accumulates</a> in the animals’ quarters onboard ship, irritating their nose, throat and eyes and leading to pulmonary inflammation and weight loss.</p>
<p>The problems are not confined to Australia - last week the live export of sheep from Ramsgate, England, to the continent was suspended because of welfare problems. </p>
<p>The welfare and conservation impact of fisheries bycatch during large-scale trawling has recently been <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/super-trawler">prominently discussed</a>. In this case the government has acted decisively: it is tempting to believe that conservation issues have more impact than animal welfare ones.</p>
<h2>The cost of acting is high</h2>
<p>The animal welfare problems the Federal Government has faced are matched by environmental issues that are at least as significant, including the carbon tax and home insulation. Together the prominence of animal and environment issues demonstrates a problem with our current system of government in Australia: short-term government cycles mean long-term problems are difficult to address.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15548/original/gqwnntpd-1347858208.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There isn’t much evidence on which to base animal welfare standards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">rosao/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This government came to power promising to overhaul the live export trade, a guaranteed vote winner as most members of the community are against the trade. The public response to the revelations about cattle slaughter in Indonesia was <a href="http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-012-9412-0">extreme pity</a> for the cattle. However, it seems that when in power, the government decided the economic and social cost of a thorough overhaul was too high.</p>
<p>The high cost of addressing live export issues - to Australia’s livestock producers, to the exporting industry and even to the consumers overseas - means that the government has predictably recoiled from addressing them in a comprehensive way. (It has attempted to ensure traceability of Australian livestock overseas and sent teams to recipient countries to try to persuade them to manage animals better.) </p>
<p>Revising the Australian Standards for Export of Livestock - a task the government has just started working on with RSPCA - could improve animal welfare, but there is little published research for evidence-based standards.</p>
<h2>New technologies efficient, but dehumanising</h2>
<p>These animal welfare problems would not be emerging had it not been for the increasing industrialisation of the way we use animals and their environment. We can transport 100,000 animals half way around the world with losses only slightly greater than if they had stayed in Australia. We can rear animals in superfactories with minimal loss, and harvest fish in vast hauls with supertrawlers. </p>
<p>These new technologies are economically viable and very efficient in use of human labour. But they pose significant ethical questions because the animals are just a commodity, a unit in the production line. The public are regularly being alerted to the issues by activist groups, which have an increasingly important role in society. The issues are not just about the use and abuse of animals; there are major environmental implications as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15549/original/f8ggv4c8-1347858269.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s not often we come face-to-face with a farm animal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Larsen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Building an agricultural system that supports welfare</h2>
<p>Australia’s livestock producing regions should be steered towards a sustainable system of food production that will meet the needs of people in this part of the world during the 21st century. Australia’s population is expanding and will continue to do so. We will need more home-grown production. World food demand is also increasing rapidly, requiring efficient use of land for food production.</p>
<p>One possibility to improve the sustainability of our production systems is a more widespread adoption of agroforestry systems. These combine trees - which capture and utilise carbon, water and soil nutrients efficiently - with crops or animals. These benefit from the trees’ microclimate, the reduction in disease and resistance to drought. Agroforestry systems are biologically more efficient than separated forestry and crop/animal systems. </p>
<p>Other technologies that must be considered for Australian agriculture include <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-dust-bowls-to-food-bowls-australias-conservation-farming-revolution-6020">minimal till crop production</a> and organic farming. These focus on maintaining a healthy soil and a biologicaly efficient production system, through recycling and without the use of exogenous chemicals.</p>
<h2>Taking the long-term view</h2>
<p>Bob Brown recently <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/brown-advocates-for-one-world-parliament-20110629-1gqz1.html">proposed a global government</a>. This could go some way towards a more universal responsibility towards people and animals, but it has its difficulties. Would people vote to secure the future of poverty-stricken Africans and their animals, for example, if it was at the expense of their own wellbeing? The transfer of some governmental responsibilities from a national to a continental level has not been particularly successful in Europe. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/15550/original/yxdpthk6-1347858352.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agriculture that more closely emulates natural systems benefits animals and farmers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Clarke</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, lengthening the cycles of Australian government to five years would enable much more to be done to address long-term problems. It would diminish the tedious and destructive bickering between the two major parties, which furiously vie for power over 2.5 year cycles.</p>
<p>The animal welfare issues that have characterised the Gillard government, with activist groups exposing major ethical issues and government attempting to shore up the status quo with short term fixes, typify the dilemma that we all individually find ourselves in. We know about the long-term problems but act in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-trust-your-stone-age-brain-its-unsustainable-9075">own current interests</a>. We need a lot of persuading to sacrifice our own standard of living for the benefit of others. </p>
<p>We may argue that we’re not ready to make the change, but it’s easy to put off until tomorrow what should be done today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the last ten years, Clive Phillips and his students have received the following funding in relation to live export Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Australia, Meat and Livestock Australia Livecorp, Humane Society International and the Humane Slaughter Association. He has honorary positions with Voiceless (Scientific Council), Animal Welfare Advisory Council (Qld), Live Export Standards Advisory Group.
</span></em></p>The government has been plagued by animal welfare problems over the last two years. The biggest issue so far has been the mistreatment of our livestock overseas. Most recently, two shipments of sheep to…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/71412012-05-23T20:40:24Z2012-05-23T20:40:24ZLatest animal export exposé reminds us to steer clear of factory farming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10970/original/v623t64d-1337740475.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Consumers have an image of animal agriculture which is getting further and further from the truth.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Records NSW</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has once again been left to an advocacy group, Animals Australia, to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/exporters-face-action-on-cattle-cruelty-film-20120517-1ytl9.html">highlight the cruel practices</a> involved in cattle slaughter in Indonesia. Under new rules put in place by the Federal Department of Agriculture following last year’s exposé, exporters must employ auditors to monitor the slaughter. However, <a href="http://www.animalsaustralia.org/take_action/indonesia-new-evidence-2012/">recently released footage</a> shows that some of these auditors either did not detect the clear mistreatment of cattle or they failed to act.</p>
<p>Now that the issues have been highlighted by the advocacy group, the department has recommended disciplinary action for the two exporting companies involved. This has prompted claims by the live exporters that the system is working.</p>
<p>It is correct that the new system has allowed the suppliers to be identified and disciplined once the abuse was revealed, which was not possible before the new regulations. However, the failure to detect problems is concerning. It brings into question whether auditors paid for by exporters can be impartial. </p>
<p>My research group has recently identified that scientists reporting of animal welfare research <a href="http://www.rspca.org.au/assets/files/Science/SciSem2012-Proceedings.pdf">is influenced by the funding of the research</a> (see page 25). So if scientists, why not auditors? </p>
<p>This recent episode demonstrates that the effectiveness of the auditors in ensuring the welfare of the animals depends not only on their willingness to report incidents, but also on the standards they are given to implement. The World Health Organisation standards do not mandate some practices - such as stunning - that are essential for good welfare, so it is unlikely that they will satisfy Australian consumers.</p>
<p>The welfare of live export animals can be inadequate at many different stages in the export process, not only at slaughter. Mustering cattle, trucking them long distances, loading them onto a ship, rough sea journeys, high temperatures and accumulation of ammonia on ship are just some of the hazardous components of the journey. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10962/original/2dgcpjjf-1337739837.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Export exposes animals to several different stresses, and they may accumulate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The animal’s resistance to stress can become weakened after a long period of transport, and the new and strange experiences that they have. However, it is the cumulative effect of multiple stresses that is often forgotten. Evaluated individually each one may be acceptable, but together they may represent hardship that the cattle are unable to bear.</p>
<p>Australian meat consumers generally have a good impression of cattle production systems here. The freedom to roam and a natural system of feeding on pasture are just two of the advantages that are important for welfare. Intensifying the system by feedlotting and prolonged transport to slaughter could damage that image. Live export cattle are shipped in large numbers in unnatural conditions, ending up in feedlots or an abattoir, all far from the community perspective of cattle happily grazing in paddocks.</p>
<p>Over the nine thousand years that we have managed cattle, they have become docile animals. They have developed a willingness to accept a range of conditions, even if they are not conducive to good welfare. </p>
<p>Our willingness to accept poor welfare standards is largely driven by how much we can afford to spend on our animals. When one of the richest countries in the world, Australia, exports animals alive to one of the poorest, Indonesia, it is likely that the change in standards will cause issues with the Australian community. We must safeguard the natural image that Australians have of cattle production in this country, because if it becomes tarnished with the factory farming brush consumers will turn away from the products.</p>
<p>Intensification of cattle farming systems is progressing rapidly overseas. Having just returned from looking at new housing systems for cattle in Estonia, it is clear that the globally increasing demand for milk and beef is encouraging an unprecedented growth in the scale of individual enterprises that is often at the expense of the animal’s welfare.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10964/original/y6q2j3pt-1337739838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maintaining the integrity of Australian cattle farming is important for producers too - consumers demand good conditions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Eastern European countries became accustomed to industrial scale farms during the Communist era. Now new dairies are being established, each with several thousand cows. There is no support for small farming systems, like those common in Western Europe. Cows are never allowed onto pasture and are loose housed in barns, where they used to be tethered. They are milked by robots and live on wet concrete covered in excreta. This, together with being offered only small concrete cubicles with little bedding to lie down in, increases lameness and mastitis, which are two of the biggest causes of wastage of dairy cows. </p>
<p>Diets that promote high milk yields take their toll all too quickly. On average cows only last 2.5 years in the milking herd, which together with the two year rearing period offers cows a pitifully short lifespan compared with their natural lifespan of 20-25 years.</p>
<p>Some Western European countries are attempting to control the intensification of cattle production systems, knowing that they have consumer support. In Sweden and Finland cows have to be out at pasture during summer. If cows are given a choice, farmers find that in all but the most inclement of weather they opt to spend their time outside.</p>
<p>The treatment of cattle solely as a means to make money, whether by exporting them to Indonesia or keeping them in milk producing factories, ignores the fact that they are sentient beings. They are capable of all of the major emotions that we experience: fear, anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, love, hatred. The caring relationship of the cattle producer for the animals in his herd can be diminished by intensive systems, because there is little contact with the animals.</p>
<p>Industrialisation of cattle production systems to generate wealth is likely to ultimately lead to their failure. Competition from alternatives has never been stronger, and the ethical and environmental implications of industrialisation of cattle production are considerable. Tasmania, and many other states and countries worldwide, have realised that consumers will not support industrial scale agriculture that does not afford high welfare to animals, as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201205/s3505724.htm">they outlaw</a> the battery farming of chickens and keeping of sows in stalls. Surely we should treat cattle with the dignity that they deserve, which is more than just being a means of making money?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips sits on the Live Exports Standards Accreditation Group, a federal government subsidiary. Since 2000 he has received funding from: University Federation for Animal Welfare, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Meat and Livestock Australia Livecorp, the Australian Veterinary Association, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Wombat Recovery Programme, the RSPCA, ARC Linkage, Morris Animal Foundation. He has honorary positions with Voiceless (Scientific Council), Vets Against Live Export (advisory), Animal Welfare Advisory Council (Qld), Live Export Standards Advisory Group.</span></em></p>It has once again been left to an advocacy group, Animals Australia, to highlight the cruel practices involved in cattle slaughter in Indonesia. Under new rules put in place by the Federal Department of…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/61992012-04-26T04:28:21Z2012-04-26T04:28:21ZTerms of trade: live cattle exports in the Asian Century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/9838/original/bsq2m5dk-1335144690.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C22%2C1642%2C988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australians' strong concerns about animal welfare put us at odds with Asian live export markets; but sharing our food production technologies gives us a potential advantage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-in-the-asian-century-6391">AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY</a> – A series examining Australia’s role in the rapidly transforming Asian region. Delivered in partnership with the Australian government.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Today, Professor Clive Phillips takes on the debate around Australia’s live cattle trade with Asia.</strong></p>
<p>Australia is currently one of the world’s food exporters. Last year, <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/exports">exports</a> were valued at over $27 billion. However, the population is growing – will we still export at the end of the century? </p>
<p>Meat is presently the most important agricultural export commodity, worth about $5 billion. In the early days most of our meat exports went processed to Europe and the USA. Now about 20% is exported live to Asia, with cattle going mainly to Southeast Asia and sheep to the Middle East. </p>
<p>Some in the industry have taken steps to improve the welfare of these animals, but the length of the journey “from paddock to plate” and the lack of control in recipient countries means welfare issues are inevitable. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.essentialmedia.com.au/live-cattle-export-ban/">Surveys</a> show that most Australians do not support the live export trade. In our liberal, democratic country, Australians have the opportunity to express concerns, and this has had an impact on government and industry management of the trade.</p>
<p>But while creating policy change by being vocal in Australia is possible, many Asian people may not be able to speak out or effect change in the same way if they are offended. In Asia there is also little opportunity or desire to buy meat that has been produced under guaranteed high welfare standards.</p>
<h2>Different cultures</h2>
<p>Exporting livestock created an opportunity to extend and improve trade relations with countries such as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia which have very different cultures to our own. </p>
<p>But the differences in welfare standards are profound. For example, in these Muslim countries there is a requirement to kill animals by a cut to the throat, which prevents pre-slaughter stunning, whereas in Australia nearly all animals are stunned before slaughter, rendering them senseless before they bleed to death. </p>
<p>Thus, rather than providing opportunities to enhance trade relations, the export of livestock has created divisions. Frequently, the trade has had to be <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/live-cattle-ban-to-stay-20110607-1fr8b.html">suspended by the Australian government</a> because of animal welfare issues.</p>
<p>This encourages recipient countries to source their meat from other countries or develop their own production capacity. Increasing meat production capacity in Asia means destruction of rainforest and may even reduce staple crop production for the ever expanding human population.</p>
<p>These cultural sensitivities threaten Australia’s dominance of the world’s meat trade, which evolved because of its natural advantages in raising livestock.</p>
<h2>Choices ahead</h2>
<p>The changes in commodity trade that will take place over the course of this century are hard to predict, especially for sensitive commodities like livestock. But one choice is clear – Australia can remain a small but wealthy economy in a distant corner of the world or it can share its resources and development with its neighbours. </p>
<p>We already have major skills shortages in areas of sensitive exports, mining and agriculture in particular. Developing a skilled labour force, sharing resources and co-operation with our neighbours will be vital for success in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Australia is well placed to progress along these lines, having already developed a multicultural framework for a nation that demonstrates considerable tolerance compared to other countries. </p>
<p>This need to share our resources and development with our neighbours is all the more pressing as Asian population growth is foreshadowing major food shortages. This, coupled with climate change, could further widen the economic gap between Australia and the Asian continent.</p>
<h2>A new strategy</h2>
<p>If we grow our own society using our agricultural resources locally, accepting immigrants from Asia to help us develop our skills base, our livestock will not need to be exported to Asia. </p>
<p>We could use our resources sustainably to produce food locally for an expanded multicultural population. Australia can process and slaughter its cattle here, avoiding the ethical issues of live animal export.</p>
<p>As the century progresses it is likely that raising cattle and sheep extensively on range-lands will diminish in importance, as our food production technologies develop so that we can produce large quantities of high quality food from crop farming. The carbon footprint of our agriculture would vastly decline as we replace animal products with crops and consume them locally, remembering that agriculture is a major contributor to global climate change. </p>
<p>This transition in the types of agricultural production is most likely in parts of the tropical north of Australia, where there is water supply and adequate temperatures for year-round crop growth. </p>
<p>Already we see the popularity of vegetable-based milk and meat replacements growing significantly. In Europe, soya milk sales are currently <a href="http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c60465">growing</a> at more than 20% per year, and Asian people have a strong and growing demand too.</p>
<p>The Asian century will bring opportunities for Australia to develop into a modern multicultural society that will be the shape of future successful nations. Australia’s good fortune in having the resources to develop locally in this way has remained largely unrealised. </p>
<p><strong>This is part sixteen of <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-in-the-asian-century-6391">Australia in the Asian Century</a>. You can read other instalments by clicking the links below:</strong></p>
<p><strong>Part One: <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-to-get-ahead-this-century-learn-an-asian-language-6247">Want to get ahead this century? Learn an Asian language</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Two: <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-great-untapped-resource-chinese-investment-6197">Australia’s great, untapped resource … Chinese investment</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Three: <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-china-australia-and-asias-northern-democracies-6348">Beyond China: Australia and Asia’s northern democracies</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Four: <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-a-farm-on-top-of-a-mine-australias-soft-power-potential-in-asia-6328">More than a farm on top of a mine: Australia’s soft power potential in Asia</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Five: <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-can-lead-the-fight-against-asias-lifestyle-disease-epidemic-6239">Australia can lead the fight against Asia’s lifestyle disease epidemic</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Six: <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-needs-an-asian-century-institute-6217">Why Australia needs an Asian Century Institute</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Seven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/taming-the-tigers-tourism-in-asia-to-become-a-two-way-street-6198">Taming the tigers: tourism in Asia to become a two-way street</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Eight: <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-will-need-a-strong-constitution-for-the-asian-century-6249">Australia will need a strong constitution for the Asian Century</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Nine: <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-focus-on-skills-will-allow-australia-to-reap-fruits-of-its-labour-6306">A focus on skills will allow Australia to reap fruits of its labour</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Ten: <a href="https://theconversation.com/engaging-with-asia-weve-been-here-before-6455">Engaging with Asia? We’ve been here before</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Eleven: <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-india-and-australian-gas-who-controls-energy-in-the-asian-century-6243">China, India and Australian gas – who controls energy in the Asian Century?</a></strong> </p>
<p><strong>Part Twelve: <a href="https://theconversation.com/dealing-with-the-threat-of-deadly-viruses-from-asia-6504">Dealing with the threat of deadly viruses from Asia</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Thirteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/defence-agreements-with-us-harm-australias-reputation-in-asia-6298">Defence agreements with US harm Australia’s reputation in Asia</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Fourteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-asia-faces-climate-change-upheaval-how-will-australia-respond-6308">As Asia faces climate change upheaval, how will Australia respond?</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Part Fifteen: <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australia-can-become-asias-food-bowl-6202">How Australia can become Asia’s food bowl</a></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/6199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Phillips sits on the Live Exports Standards Accreditation Group, a federal government subsidiary. Since 2000 he has received funding from: University Federation for Animal Welfare, Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Meat and Livestock Australia Livecorp, the Australian Veterinary Association, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Wombat Recovery Programme, the RSPCA, ARC Linkage, Morris Animal Foundation. He has honorary positions with Voiceless (Scientific Council), Vets Against Live Export (advisory), Animal Welfare Advisory Council (Qld), Live Export Standards Advisory Group.</span></em></p>AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY – A series examining Australia’s role in the rapidly transforming Asian region. Delivered in partnership with the Australian government. Today, Professor Clive Phillips takes…Clive Phillips, Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/56332012-02-29T03:52:03Z2012-02-29T03:52:03ZLive exports controversy: what makes a cow Australian?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8209/original/fn3kxbv7-1330486769.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C56%2C866%2C576&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why do we care so much about the origin of brutalised cows?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">librarianidol/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New footage <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-29/ludwig-defends-live-export-regime/3859372">recently aired on ABC</a> has again brought to our attention the plight of cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. Scenes of cattle being poked, stabbed, and slaughtered without appropriate equipment has again caused emotional distress and moral outrage. In some cases it even seems that some cattle are being cut-up while still vocalising: while they are still alive, sentient, and in pain. </p>
<p>What is curious is the repeated use of the term “Australian cattle”. We appear to be particularly concerned about whether the cattle are Australian! </p>
<p>There is good reason for this. The live cattle trade with Indonesia was reinitiated on the basis that our Australian cattle would be assured of better treatment. As Australians we were collectively upset by the idea that we sent live cattle overseas to be brutalised at abattoirs unrestricted by our own animal welfare standards. </p>
<p>In response to the recent footage, the Federal Department of Agriculture is now investigating whether the cattle are Australian and if the slaughterhouses are part of its approved abattoir system. The new footage has implications for the assurances provided to Australians that our cattle would be slaughtered using processes that are more aligned with our moral conscience.</p>
<p>Still, what remains interesting is the moral outrage of Australians about the treatment of Australian cattle. What of the Indonesian cattle, or cattle imported from other parts of the planet? Why are we so concerned that the brutality we see is not happening to our own cattle?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8206/original/8vp4h47g-1330486511.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It makes us morally outraged when sentient animals are hurt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">stuartncook/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I would suggest there are three reasons for this. All three reveal some interesting insights into self-serving biases evident in our ethical reasoning.</p>
<p>First, the moral outrage of Australians is focused on Australian cattle because we have direct responsibility for their export. That is, we are sending them to these abattoirs and therefore feel a sense of responsibility for what happens to them. Put another way, we feel that what is happening to these cattle is somewhat within our control.</p>
<p>On the surface this seems reasonable. It does suggest, however, that we are mostly outraged over the fact that we have been implicated in this heinous treatment of animals. That is, we are upset that our hands appear to be dirty.</p>
<p>This may be true to some extent, but it does not capture what appears to be really upsetting people. What triggers our emotional response to this footage is seeing the brutalisation of a living sentient creature capable of feeling pain. We are morally outraged that sentient creatures should be harmed in these ways. </p>
<p>This brings us to the second reason we may be especially interested in Australian cattle. It’s just too damn hard to be concerned for all cattle everywhere: it’s just overwhelming. We are mostly interested in Australian cattle because we feel capable of doing something to help them. That is, our moral outrage is largely directed by our own perceived capacity to achieve change.</p>
<p>This makes sense. Why not focus our moral outrage on things that we feel we have some control over? It also indicates, however, that our ethical reasoning is largely shaped by our own need to feel in control of negative outcomes. Indonesian cattle are outside of our control and therefore we are less focused on their brutalisation.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/8208/original/ns89y9yz-1330486670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">“Our” cows may seem more human to us.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonid Mamchenkov</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps being concerned over things we have no capacity to change is just too disturbing?</p>
<p>There may, however, be another reason that we are especially concerned for Australian cows. We are concerned simply because they are <em>our</em> cows. Social psychologists have studied this phenomenon for the past 40 years in humans. People allocate more resources to their own groups, view their own groups more positively and are more likely to help their own group members. Indeed people even view members of their own groups as possessing more “human” qualities – qualities which make them more morally worthy and of greater moral concern. </p>
<p>Perhaps these same processes apply to animals. When they are our animals we see them differently: we are more concerned about their welfare and more likely to respond to their needs. </p>
<p>While all three of these biases suggest our ethical reasoning may be far from objective, they also suggest that animals (at least sometimes) may be subject to the same biases in moral thinking as are other humans. This is perhaps encouraging for animals to some degree.</p>
<p>Psychologising these issues indeed does little for the current plight of animals in Indonesian abattoirs. Gaining insight into how we think about and care for animals does, however, have a range of broader implications. The psychological processes that allow us to overlook the harm brought to animals are the same as those that allow us to overlook harm brought to other humans. </p>
<p>Concern for animal welfare appears to be on the rise. This is a good thing. Expanding our moral circle to include animals not only benefits them, it also means that circle is more likely to include other humans who are different from us. </p>
<p>Still, it does not take much for our moral circle to quickly retract. Economic hard times and limited resources for survival achieve this particularly well: a factor that we should pay close attention to before judging the extent of care and concern paid to animals by those who have fewer resources than ourselves. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brock Bastian receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>New footage recently aired on ABC has again brought to our attention the plight of cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. Scenes of cattle being poked, stabbed, and slaughtered without appropriate equipment has…Brock Bastian, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Psychology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.