Government to review live exports after graphic footage of Australian cattle slaughtered inhumanely shown on TV

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

The Australian government has suspended live cattle exports to 11 Indonesian abattoirs and announced a review of the A$320m (£270m) trade after graphic footage was broadcast of Australian cattle being slaughtered inhumanely. Agriculture minister Joe Ludwig warned that more slaughter houses could be added to the banned list.

"I will appoint an independent reviewer to investigate the complete supply chain for live exports up to and including the point of slaughter," Ludwig said.

Indonesian officials could not immediately be reached for response.

While Australian abattoirs render cattle unconscious with stun guns before killing them, most in Indonesia follow the Islamic method of cutting the throats of conscious animals. The ABC programme Four Corners showed steers being whipped and taking minutes to bleed to death after their throats were cut.

The 11 abattoirs in Jakarta, Bogor, Bandar Lampung and Medan were selected at random in March and video was recorded by Lyn White, a former police officer and campaign director of the animal welfare group Animals Australia.

"We just stopped on the side of the road and asked people where their local abattoir was, it's as simple as that," White said.

She did not expect the government investigation would find conditions any more humane at the vast majority of other Indonesians abattoirs.

"There's about 770 (abattoirs) in Indonesia and only five stun, so only five would have remotely acceptable standards," White said.

Animals Australia and the Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) want the live cattle trade banned on cruelty grounds. Both co-operated with Australian Broadcasting Corporaton to produce the gruesome television programme screened nationally on Monday night.

RSPCA chief scientist Bidda Jones, who analysed the video slaughter of 50 cattle, said the slaughtermen used on average 11 cuts to the throat to kill each animal, and as many as 33. The Australian standard was death within 30 seconds.

"They basically hack the heads off with blunt knifes, causing a lot of distress and pain," Jones said.

Ludwig described the images as "shocking in the extreme".

Charles Armstrong, president of the Farmers' Association in New South Wales, which represents many Australian cattle ranchers, labelled the Indonesian practices as "horrific cruelty".

Some key Greens party and independent lawmakers, whose support is crucial to the Labor party government, as well as some government lawmakers, are calling for the trade with Indonesia to be suspended or terminated.

Foreign minister Kevin Rudd told government colleagues at a meeting on Tuesday that the trade suspensions with individual abattoirs would not harm Australia's "strong and robust relationship" with Indonesia.

Two government lawmakers, Janelle Saffin and Kelvin Thomson, proposed banning all live exports to Indonesia until abattoir standards were improved. Their proposal will be discussed by government colleagues at their next party meeting on 14 June.

"There was a very strong view among caucus members ... that action had to occur," a spokesman for the meeting told reporters.

The video showed abattoir workers break a bull's tail and repeatedly gouge its eyes and nostrils in failed attempts to get the animal to regain its feet, despite a broken leg.

At an abattoir in Medan in north Sumatra, cattle are seen tied and trembling as they watch other cattle slaughtered and skinned in front of them.

Before the government suspensions, Australian industry body LiveCorp had responded to the footage by suspending trade with three of the abattoirs featured and had sent trainers to a fourth.

"While we face many challenges in improving animal welfare in a developing country, we've made major progress during the past decade," LiveCorp chief executive Cameron Hall said.