Guardian Australia analysis indicates possible cases of fraud have hindered efforts to track the true fate of livestock

Australian livestock is still being killed inhumanely outside approved abattoirs seven years after strict supply chain conditions designed to protect animal welfare were introduced.



Government reports analysed by Guardian Australia indicate that possible cases of fraud have undermined efforts to track the sale and slaughter of livestock overseas, with allegations that falsified documents and photos have been given to Australian exporters at least six times.

The Guardian Australia analysis looked at all 142 agriculture department investigations into allegations of non-compliance with the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (Escas). Escas regulates what happens with Australian animals overseas, and was introduced after a Four Corners investigation in May 2011 that showed footage of cattle being whipped, beaten, kicked and stunned with sledgehammers before slaughter in Indonesia.

Of the 142 initial reports, there were 125 findings of non-compliance issued against Australian exporters. Only three of these record any exporters being punished, with cattle exports to Vietnam temporarily suspended in 2016.

These numbers do not include all cases of non-compliance because if an exporter reports a potential non-compliance incident within the “required timeframe” there is no investigation.

All three reports stem from the same initial report from Animals Australia in 2016.

Faked photos and missing cattle

Evidence given to the agriculture department by the NGO consisted of videos and photos taken in Vietnamese abattoirs, and showed “sledgehammers” and other “non-compliant handling, restraint and slaughter practices” being used.

The departmental investigation found that more than half the cattle in one consignment, exported by South East Asian Livestock Services (Seals), were allegedly killed outside the approved abattoir or could not be traced.

This was in part due to forged photos provided to the exporter by the importer. The report said: “It is considered likely that the duplication of photographs was used to cover up the removal of animals from the approved supply chain.”

It suggested that a mobile phone app had been used to manipulate one image of cattle in an approved slaughterhouse to make it look like more cattle remained in the facility than was the case.

The punitive action was a 10-week suspension of Seal’s export licence to Vietnam until it had reviewed its supply chain. Eighteen approved facilities, were also suspended.

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Seals said it had addressed supply chain issues in a “fully transparent and proactive” way.

“Remedial actions were taken and significant systems improvements were put in place to further mitigate the risk of Escas non-compliance,” the company told Guardian Australia.

“Seals also engaged an independent third party to monitor Escas control and traceability so that we are not ‘marking our own homework’.”

The reported use of fake photographs in Vietnam was just one of six government reports alleging fraud and falsified documents.

In most cases when the agriculture department finds there has been a confirmed Escas violation, exporters must review their supply chains and provide more regular reports.

It also often results in repercussions for overseas importers, feedlots and abattoirs with facilities being removed from Australian exporters’ supply chains.

However, there have been no fines issued against Australian exporters, or export licences revoked.

Continuing the trade

The agriculture department defended its regulatory system, saying it was designed to allow trade to continue while ensuring animal welfare.

“The Escas system is designed to continually improve animal welfare outcomes, while enabling trade for businesses meeting conditions and removing facilities that don’t comply,” a spokesman said.

He said Guardian Australia’s analysis “does not reflect the different treatment of complaints from external parties and self-reporting”.

“The focus is on animal welfare outcomes. If the exporter identifies and fixes issues and we are satisfied with the action, further regulatory action is not pursued.

“Exporters are required to manage their supply chain, taking corrective action when problems are identified. If exporters report any incidents and take effective corrective action, Escas is working.”

Escas was introduced in October 2011 after the Gillard government imposed a five-week ban on cattle exports to Indonesia after the Four Corners investigation. The footage was filmed by Animals Australia’s chief investigator, Lyn White, who has been conducting undercover investigations into the live export industry since 2003.

The conditions of animals on ships is rarely seen – footage released by a whistleblower this week is the first to be publicly released – but Animals Australia has filmed hundreds of hours of footage showing the mistreatment of Australian livestock once they are offloaded in foreign ports.

The non-profit welfare organisation has filed 55 complaints alleging Escas non-compliance since 2012. Exporters have self-reported 64 incidents, and industry groups have been responsible for 15. Again, this figure does not count instances of exporter self-reports where no investigation was carried out.

Investigations stemming from an Animals Australia referral have resulted in 40% of the total Escas non-compliance findings since the regime began. Another 37% are the result of self-reports by exporters, which sometimes coincide with an Animals Australia investigation. Only 2.4% of non-compliance findings have come from government audits.

Many of those reports, particularly concerning the treatment of Australian sheep in the Middle East and North Africa during Eid al-Adha, were filmed by Animals Australia’s legal counsel, Shatha Hamade.

Hamade says despite the weight of reports and evidence produced by Animals Australia conditions on the ground have not changed.

“They just have to ... enforce the regulatory powers that they already have at their disposal,” she says. “They just have to issue a show cause notice under the act and say: ‘We propose to suspend your licence because you have been breaching commonwealth law now for the last five or six years. Please show us why we shouldn’t.’

“And if they exporter can’t give them a plausible reason why then they lose their licence. But they just don’t do it because they’re compromised.”

Failure by design

The RSPCA’s chief scientist, Bidda Jones, says Escas’s structure, which relies on information provided by exporters, meant it was “difficult to know” if animal welfare had improved.

“It looks better from the outside because these animals are going through so-called approved supply chains but… we don’t have much confidence in the system lifting animal welfare standards,” she says.

There had been a reported increase in the use of stun bolts to kill Australian cattle and some improvements in how the animals – which are much larger and much less used to people than livestock produced locally in importer countries – are handled.

However, she says government reluctance to punish exporters even when it finds critical non-compliance has corroded faith in the system.

“This is part of the problem with them being the regulator because they don’t have the investigative powers or the capacity to do that job,” she says. “Ninety-nine per cent of what they do is reviewing desktop information and they have to take that information on face value so what the exporter provides to them is what they look at.”

Cases like the alleged fake photos, she says, come to light only because Animals Australia has conducted its own investigations.

“There are so many instances where exporters have breached regulations, have lost animals, have failed to meet their requirements, and they get rapped over the knuckles once or twice and that’s it,” she says.

• Notes on Guardian Australia’s analysis of Escas

Where reports were combined into a single investigation by the department, we have also combined these in our counts.

Investigations that have multiple exporters listed have been expanded to count the non-compliances for individual exporters.

Where an investigation was the result of multiple complaints from different sources, the source for the earliest complaint was used where possible.