Ban won't stop bad treatment
NOLAN meats director and Australian Meat Industry Council chairman Terry Nolan does not think stopping trade to particular abattoirs in Indonesia will go far enough to protect the welfare of beef cattle slaughtered overseas.
He hopes the fallout after the ABC’s Four Corners expose on the treatment of Australian animals in Indonesian abattoirs did not effect domestic consumption.
“It’s a terrible trashing of Australia’s reputation. Meat processed in Australia is processed to the world’s best practice and maintaining animal welfare standards in Australia is paramount,” he said.
“Consumers in Australia need to be clear that what they saw in the Indonesian footage on Four Corners, just could not happen in a state or federal registered processing establishment in Australia.”
Mr Nolan thought the Minister for Agriculture Joe Ludwig’s announcement to halt trade to abattoirs named on Four Corners was “strange”.
“As I would understand it, very few cattle are transported directly from the boat to abattoirs in Indonesia.
“They are mainly taken to farms for further fattening. It would be interesting to ask the minister how he was going to police his announcement once the cattle enter commercial channels in Indonesia.
“It would also be interesting to ask what criteria he used to select the abattoirs he was going to halt exports to, as I believe that there are hundreds of these small abattoirs all over Indonesia.
"Anything short of a total ban on all live exports until the issues with animal welfare are resolved would be totally ineffective.”
Keeping animals in Australia for slaughter would help retain jobs nationally, he said.
“The live export trade has robbed Australia of jobs in processing for years. The front and centre issue should be about animal welfare.
“Every Australian should be ashamed about processing animals in that manner depicted on Four Corners last night. You have to ask how our Australian government allows it to happen.
“It appeared as thought LiveCorp and MLA (statutory bodies within Australia that collect levies) were implicit in the process because their logos were on the side of the capture boxes. Surely people have known about these practices for some time?” Mr Nolan said.
“While they talk about training and say that they have tried to improve standards; they have obviously made little or no inroads. From an Australian meat processor’s point of view I was appalled with what I saw.
“To think that we can be a world leader in animal welfare here in Australia and produce the world’s best practice outcomes in regard to animal welfare and food hygiene; then within a short boat ride from our shores Australian cattle get treated like this … It is totally unacceptable.
"We must protest in the strongest possible way against it continuing for one minute longer.
“If the animals aren’t treated well in any overseas market, then we simply shouldn’t trade our live animals into those markets.”
