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Student animal protesters at the live export rally in Fremantle. Photo: Anton La Macchia
Students say 'enough is enough': Ban live export saga
Anton La Macchia & Ben Harvey | PerthNews/HPFACIWA
31 May, 2018 9:30am
DEVELOPING: “Unhygienic, severely overcrowded, and lack sufficient ventilation. When they fall sick, they rarely receive proper care.”Sounds like a description of conditions on board a live export ship, right?
It’s not. It’s actually from a Human Rights Watch report on Sudanese jails.
“Inmates reported that prison officers beat them with sticks, canes or whips.”
That’s how the Sudanese treat their fellow human beings. So how do you think they will treat the sheep they will start exporting to the Middle East if Alannah MacTiernan gets her way?
Our headstrong Agriculture Minister is rightly fired up by the appalling animal welfare breaches documented with monotonous regularity by Animals Australia.
She clearly thinks this week’s McCarthy recommendations do not go far enough and wants to ban exports from WA during the northern summer.
MacTiernan’s politics may be left of the fork but she is an economic realist and so would know that other exporters, such as Sudan, will do their best to meet demand. And when they do, the conditions during transport are going to make the Awassi Express look like the Queen Mary.
A few years from now society will look back at the live animal trade and wonder how we ever let this happen.
But don’t kid yourself, Alannah. Banning exports from WA is not going to stop animal cruelty. It will just change the place it happens. .
When quizzed about this probability, the veteran MP did something she has rarely done over two decades in public life: she used weasel words.
“The State Government has obligations under the Animal Welfare Act to prevent cruelty to West Australian animals,” she said. “That jurisdiction obviously does not extend to animals from other countries.”
On an issue of such importance to the State, West Australians would expect much better of her.
Opinion polls show Australians don’t like the trade but now is no time for a politician to be a sheep and indulge in woolly thinking.
MacTiernan needs to put her considerable talents to work ensuring the rules are applied to exporters and that those who breach them are punished.
Anton La Macchia & Ben Harvey | PerthNews/HPFACIWA
31 May, 2018 9:30am
DEVELOPING: “Unhygienic, severely overcrowded, and lack sufficient ventilation. When they fall sick, they rarely receive proper care.”Sounds like a description of conditions on board a live export ship, right?
It’s not. It’s actually from a Human Rights Watch report on Sudanese jails.
“Inmates reported that prison officers beat them with sticks, canes or whips.”
That’s how the Sudanese treat their fellow human beings. So how do you think they will treat the sheep they will start exporting to the Middle East if Alannah MacTiernan gets her way?
Our headstrong Agriculture Minister is rightly fired up by the appalling animal welfare breaches documented with monotonous regularity by Animals Australia.
She clearly thinks this week’s McCarthy recommendations do not go far enough and wants to ban exports from WA during the northern summer.
MacTiernan’s politics may be left of the fork but she is an economic realist and so would know that other exporters, such as Sudan, will do their best to meet demand. And when they do, the conditions during transport are going to make the Awassi Express look like the Queen Mary.
A few years from now society will look back at the live animal trade and wonder how we ever let this happen.
But don’t kid yourself, Alannah. Banning exports from WA is not going to stop animal cruelty. It will just change the place it happens. .
When quizzed about this probability, the veteran MP did something she has rarely done over two decades in public life: she used weasel words.
“The State Government has obligations under the Animal Welfare Act to prevent cruelty to West Australian animals,” she said. “That jurisdiction obviously does not extend to animals from other countries.”
On an issue of such importance to the State, West Australians would expect much better of her.
Opinion polls show Australians don’t like the trade but now is no time for a politician to be a sheep and indulge in woolly thinking.
MacTiernan needs to put her considerable talents to work ensuring the rules are applied to exporters and that those who breach them are punished.
