4 Corners: The Live Animal Export Market
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011
The cruelty involved in Australian live animal exports is not a new issue. It’s not trendy or hipster. The Australian public pressured over the treatment of live sheep exports to the Middle East a decade ago and some facets of the industry were forced to change. The catalyst then was Journalism… the catalyst today is Journalism.
I remember watching the late Richard Carleton on 60 Minutes reveal in 2003 how live sheep were crammed in unbearable heat to suffer a horror voyage to the Middle East. Thousands died at sea and were pushed overboard. Survivors were dehydrated and starved on the voyage standing in their own dung and urine. When they arrived the slaughter was in a traditional style that our Western perspective found abhorrant. Australians stood up and voiced outrage the very next day… and some of those issues were addressed by government (final paragraph on Page 2). Unfortunately, some of those issues have remained to haunt us even today with live animal exports to Indonesia. Note the corporate players in live exports are almost unaltered from a decade ago.
The 4 Corners episode about live animal exports to Indonesia (A Bloody Business) aired on Monday 30 May, 2011. In my humble opinion, 4 Corners has produced one of the great pieces of Australian Journalism to be aired this year. This is what Journalism should be about and what it potentially has to offer society – the revelation of a hidden truth that somebody wants to remain untold and, in the telling of that story, produces an affective response within society that leads to action and some level of social change.That, my friends, is Journalism with the big J. That’s where great editorial skill comes to the fore… it’s where journalistic institutions become necessary to protect the story being told from the big business and government ministers who definitely do not want the story told. So, in my view, whether you want to concede this point or not – the Indonesian slaughterhouse story was exceptionally good investigative Journalism.
There is a GetUp! petition available online addressed to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig: “We call on you to immediately halt the live exports of Australian cattle to Indonesia and move towards an end to the live exports of Australian animals within 3 years.” I hope you consider adding your voice to the call to stop live animal exports from our country. The bottom line is our meat should be butchered in Australia by professionals in as humane an environment as possible. We should only sell into markets that accept our meat as it is supplied.
However, I see that there’s a world full of cross conversation happening around this issue as well. Again in my humble opinion, this is all pepper on the toilet roll when it comes to it’s core. Are our animals ‘Australian’ is as loaded a question as ‘do you believe in cruelty of overseas animals’. First – yes and no. Yes we have an ethical and moral (and I know the difference between those two terms) responsibility to the livestock we raise and sell for export; in that sense they are Australian. No, I don’t think they’re going to be swearing steers in as Australian citizens. It comes down to whether you see farm animals as living feeling creatures or as dumb commodities. Second – no. Animal cruelty is shocking and I obviously miss the inference that opposing the live export of Australian animals in any way equates to a yes on that question.
