Live export delegation to Middle East

During 2011, as the result of footage seen on national television, the Australian Government banned live cattle exports to Indonesia for about two months.

The footage showed cattle being very badly treated and, in fact, abused. It also showed inhumane conditions in abattoirs in that country. There was an immediate and widespread public outcry. Talkback shows on radio went into overdrive as people rang to share their opinions about what they had seen. The Federal Government reacted swiftly by stopping all live cattle exports in the short term.

This cost an important industry, in Northern Australia, an enormous amount of money in lost sales and the expenses of keeping animals that had been set for transport. There were even reports of farmers not being able to sustain the expense of holding the cattle and planning toward slaughtering them.

There were very loud demands by certain groups to stop the live export permanently.

Unfortunately, this is not a viable option as this market needs to have the animals slaughtered in the country rather than meat sent over. Indonesia is predominantly a Moslem country and this requires that slaughter be done according to Halal practices. The Halal method used in Australia does not meet the standard expected in that country, as our slaughter process includes stunning, which is not done in Indonesia.

A further reason for requiring freshly killed meat is that there is much less refrigeration in Indonesia and therefore there is limited capacity to store meat.

Unfortunately, to get the live animals to Indonesia involves loading them onto ships and transporting across the ocean. This does cause the animals stress. However, the farmers and transport companies have the care of the animals as their absolute priority, as they lose money for each animal that arrive dead or in poor condition.

After a review by the Australian Government and the establishment of specific requirements that must be met by the importers of the live export animals, the ban was lifted in October 2011.

In early February, the Agricultural Minister, Senator Joe Ludwig, will lead a delegation to the Middle East to set up a set of regulations that meet international standards for livestock exported to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Like Indonesia, these countries are very important to the live export industry and setting up regulations that all agree with, is vital to the future of this important trade.