Since Monday’s Four Corners program airing the horrific footage captured by Animals Australia, of tortured Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs, there’s been a colossal outcry from the community calling for an immediate end to the trade. Not surprisingly this outcry hasn’t at all been softened since the Minister’s announcement of suspending the trade to just the 11 abattoirs where footage was captured, and an inquiry into the rest.
In fact the Minister’s announcement has actually sparked even more outrage, with thousands of people continuing to take a multitude of actions today, including sending letters via the Humane Chain website, which again caused the website to crash momentarily due to such high use. It’s not only the general public that are completely outraged by this decision, Members of Parliament are too. Independent Senator Nick Xenophon told the ABC, “Given that there are something like 100 slaughterhouses in Indonesia this is only an 11 per cent solution.”
During a heated Labor caucus meeting yesterday West Coast Sentinel reported that around twenty MPs rose up and demanded more. ''We told him (Minister for Agriculture) an inquiry was bull….,'' said one MP. ''We have had enough inquiries.''
On a promising note West Coast Sentinel also reported “two MPs, Janelle Saffin and Kelvin Thomson, presented a notice of motion to be debated by the caucus in a fortnight which calls for a ban on live exports to Indonesia.”
WSPA commends Saffin and Thomson on their action and is pleased that so many MPs are standing up for what is right. What’s not right is continuing to let our animals go to Indonesia and suffer horrifically, until the Australian Government figures out what to do. What needs to happen is for the Australian Government to really take head of the evidence Animals Australia and the RSPCA have provided and immediately end the cattle trade to Indonesia.
A suspension to just 11 abattoirs is not acceptable, in fact WSPA isn’t confident even this will really be achieved. Dr Bidda Jones the RSPCA's chief scientist told the ABC, “What happens in Indonesia is that butchers will come to the feedlot and buy animals individually. Then they will take them to the slaughterhouse. We can't understand how that would be possible to actually restrict that ability. Even if you could do that those cattle would merely go to the next available slaughterhouse. They will all suffer cruel treatment.”
It’s clear animal welfare groups, the meat processing industry and the Australian community will not stop campaigning until the Australian Government ends this trade once and for all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment