Australian Senator Calls For End to Cruel Live ExportsAndrew Bartlett, a member of the Australian Senate and the deputy leader of the Australian Democrats, has added his voice to the myriad others who oppose the cruel live export trade in calling for an end to live animal exports to Saudi Arabia. Australia’s live animal trade to Saudi Arabia was suspended in 2003 following the Cormo Express disaster, in which almost 6,000 sheep on a single shipment died after spending 11 weeks at sea. As sheep shipments to Saudi Arabia resumed this fall, Sen. Bartlett proposed a motion in Parliament that would repeal the order allowing the trade; the motion was also backed by the Australian Greens and supported by a presentation of 125,000 signatures gathered in opposition to the trade, which Sen. Bartlett described as the “largest Senate petition this decade.” Sen. Bartlett’s arguments against cruel live exports echo those of PETA and animal welfare groups in Australia: that live exports regularly fail to meet even the most basic Australian animal welfare standards. Bartlett reminds fellow government officials that 20 years ago, an Australian Senate committee report unanimously found that the live sheep trade should come to an end if animal welfare was the top consideration in that decision and emphasized that “[t]here is ample evidence that the trade involves extraordinary and extreme cruelty.” Senator Bartlett also drew attention to a report prepared by a senior corporate consultant and “hard-nosed economist” Selwyn Heilbron, which found that the liveexport trade may be costing Australia approximately A$1.5 billion and 10,500 jobs. He pointed out that this could readily be rectified by switching to a chilled carcass trade, slaughtering sheep in Australia and keeping jobs in Australia, and that the argument that countries such as Saudi Arabia would not buy frozen meat from Australia “is simply wrong.” Read more about PETA’s campaign to end cruel live exports. 
|