Barnaby Joyce urges against overreaction to footage of cruelty to Australian sheep in Middle East

Updated

Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says the live export regulation system is working, despite new footage showing Australian sheep being mistreated in the Middle East.

Key points Footage provide to ABC by Animals Australia appears to show mistreatment of Australian sheep

Video was shot in Jordan earlier this year

Animals Australia says 10,000 Australian animals were seen being sold outside the ESCAS welfare system

Only two Australian companies - Livestock Shipping Services and Wellard - export sheep to Jordan

The footage, aired by the ABC's Lateline program last night, shows animals that had been sent to Jordan for the Muslim festival of Eid being cruelly handled prior to slaughter.

The video was shot earlier this month by Animals Australia activists in various parts of Jordan and provided to the ABC.

It raises questions about the new system put into place in 2011 after the furore over the treatment of Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.

The footage shows sheep being sold individually and then slaughtered in the street and, in one case, in a private home.

Some of the sheep take some time to die after having their throats cut. In one case, it takes a man four attempts to cut the throat of a struggling animal.

Some sheep are dragged roughly by one leg to the place of slaughter, where they are killed next to the bodies of other sheep.

Other animals have stones thrown at them and some are sat on by children.

The footage also shows sheep being stuffed into car boots or the back of vans.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Barnaby Joyce speaks with ABC News Breakfast (ABC News)

Mr Joyce says his department is investigating the footage, but urged against an overreaction that could harm Australia's livestock industry.

"No matter how much we try, we are still going to have banks being robbed by bank robbers but we can't shut down the banking system," he told News Breakfast this morning.

"We'll have people on the roads over the limit but we're not going to shut down the roads.

"We're going to have issues such as these which are disturbing, which need to be fixed, but it shouldn't be the reason we shut down the industry."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also expressed concern over the footage, but says the existing system is designed to ensure animals are not mistreated.

"We believe that appropriate precautions have already been put in place," he said this morning.

"This footage certainly is being investigated and if the rules have been broken well we'll ensure that that ends and the rules are enforced."

The Australian Live Exporters Council says it is appalled by the apparent failure of safeguards for sheep sent to the Middle East for slaughter.

Council chief Alison Penfold says Australia needs to remain in the international trade to help raise standards right through the supply chain.

"We are the only country in the world that has made this commitment to take responsibility for animal welfare along the supply chain," she said.

"Over 100 countries around the world export livestock, but only Australia has put in place a mechanism along a supply chain to control that supply chain."

But Mr Joyce defended the supply chain safeguard.

"We have designed a system to try as much as we can to deal with this issue, so Australian sheep are not treated in this way," he said.

"What we also have to make sure is we don't overreact, there is a continual monitoring process, a process that deals with it."

Mr Joyce told a conference of beef and sheep producers and exporters in Townsville this morning that the Government will scrap an independent animal welfare supervisor position which was promised by the former government to monitor the humane treatment of live exports.

Mr Joyce says the position was an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and his department will take over the task of implementing government policy on live exports, including the operation of the Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme (ESCAS), previously overseen by the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare.

Thousands of animals sold outside welfare assurance system

The animals' distinctive appearance and ear tags identifying the farms some came from prove they are Australian, and several local people tell the Animals Australia activist on camera that the sheep are Australian.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed the sheep were Australian, but would not comment further.

The vision was shot during the festival of Eid Al-Adha, when many Muslims celebrate by slaughtering sheep and sharing the meat with the poor and needy.

After the ABC's Four Corners program exposed conditions in Indonesian abattoirs, the Federal Government introduced the ESCAS.

That made livestock exporters responsible monitoring the treatment of their animals right up to the point of slaughter.

The exporter has to be sure the animals are handled in a way that adheres to international standards, which prohibit handling and slaughter in a way that causes undue stress to the animal.

There are only a small number of ESCAS-approved abattoirs in Jordan that stun animals before slaughter.

Animals Australia's Lyn White told Lateline she saw more than 10,000 Australian animals being sold outside the system at 32 different locations during the two days she spent shooting the footage.

She said she also saw Australian sheep being sold at 26 outlets in June, and reported this to the Department of Agriculture.

"I believe that the Department actually instigated an investigation into these and considered them serious breaches," she said.

"It's the failure of the exporter to respond that I think has shocked the Department of Agriculture and the industry itself, who know that what is absolute contempt for the regulations is completely contrary to the interests of the industry, let alone to the interests of Australian animals."

Australian exporter says treatment of animals is 'unacceptable'

There are only two companies exporting sheep to Jordan from Australia.

One of the companies, Livestock Shipping Services, told the ABC some of the animals in the footage came from farms the company buys livestock from, but others did not.

The company said the treatment of the animals was "unacceptable" and pledged to investigate how the sheep ended up being sold individually and slaughtered in the street.

The company also said it would cooperate with the Department of Agriculture's investigation into the matter, and claimed it had asked the Jordanian government to confiscate any Australian animals found "outside the supply chain" so it could determine their point of origin.

Wellard, the only other Australian company that exports live sheep to Jordan, said it had not exported any of the sheep in the footage.

"Wellard has viewed the footage and none of the sheep pictured were supplied by Wellard to our Jordanian customer," the company said in a statement.

"In addition, a post-Eid Festival ESCAS audit conducted by an independent, accredited auditor, and the reports from the large team Wellard sent to Jordan to assist our client with animal welfare, both indicated that our client's supply chain remained robust and that animal welfare was maintained."

Topics: livestock-welfare, livestock, rural, animals, trade, jordan, australia

First posted