Outrage at cruelty
CLARENCE Valley Cattle Producers have voiced their disgust at cruel conditions being faced by Australian export cattle in Indonesian abattoirs, exposed by an ABC’s Four Corners program.
The report, titled A Bloody Business, aired on Monday night and revealed shocking conditions in the abattoirs which process thousands of Australian export cattle a year.
The report featured graphic footage of cattle being savagely whipped and beaten before slaughter where the Indonesian slaughtermen, without first stunning the beast as is done in Australian abattoirs, struggled to cut the animal’s throats, often resorting to a sawing motion to cut through.
The report states that Australian standards required an animal to be dead within 30 seconds of its throat being cut – some of the animals in the disturbing footage gruesomely thrashed around and tried to stand-up for several minutes after their throats had been cut before finally bleeding out.
Animal experts interviewed during the report said based on the footage, they believed the cattle had suffered cruelly before they had died.
The report has been met with widespread outrage with several Federal MPs, including Page MP Janelle Saffin calling for an immediate moratorium on live exports.
In response, Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig yesterday called for the immediate suspension of live exports to 11 of the Indonesian facilities featured in the Four Corners story and announced an independent review into the entire supply chain which leads Australian cattle to slaughter in such conditions.
During the weekly cattle sale at Grafton Saleyards yesterday, the mood among many of the Clarence Valley’s own cattle producers, most of whom are no strangers to cattle slaughter themselves, was one of shock and outrage.
Southgate cattle producer, Steven Baker, said he had been sickened by the footage and said he would hate to think of any of his animals being slaughtered in such a manner.
“It’s pretty ordinary to kill cattle in the way they’re doing it,” Mr Baker said.
“They were even cutting the tendons on their back legs so they could get them down – it’s just terrible.”
Lou Bailey, a cattle producer of Whiteman Creek said for him and many other local cattle producers, it wasn’t good enough.
“I’m only a little cog in a big wheel but the thing is, all these blokes were disgusted – there are some tough men here but they don’t like seeing that, it’s a disgrace,” Mr Bailey said.
Mr Bailey said not only was the treatment of the animals unacceptably cruel, it was also a waste with the trauma and violent treatment of the cattle likely to result in poor quality meat.
“They’re bruising the hell out of them – the meat would be like eating a post,” he said.
Ian Landrigan, a cattle producer from Ulmarra, said although there was no doubt abattoir conditions needed to be improved in Indonesia, he said he wasn’t convinced putting a stop to live exports was the best approach.
“Stopping it (live export) is going to hurt our cattle industry really badly, especially in the Northern Territory.
“Live export is really important to a lot of producers up there,” Mr Landrigan said.
The Four Corners report can be viewed in full at www.abc.net.au/4corners.
