Live Animal Exports Speech

834 Words4 Pages
Our animals are being captured, caged and confined on vessels, packed in hundreds, if not thousands as they travel for weeks across the seas, often deprived of food and water. Sounds familiar? Well it certainly wasn’t much different from when Africans were brought into America as cheap slaves. In front of the government and all my parliamentary colleagues here today, I would like to say that we, as the government, are failing to ensure the welfare of animals being exported from Australia as sheep and cattle continue to suffer inhumane treatment under the government's live export supply chain assurance system. This system is flawed as it was never designed to ensure animal welfare. The animals are being whipped, their heads beaten onto concrete blocks and their throats only half-slit and died lingering deaths on these voyages. We, however, can change this. Now, in support of passing this bill to end live animal exports, I would like to present several ethical reasons why we should look at moving away from this cruel treatment of our animals. Firstly, the fate of our animals during transportation. In 2012 Austraila exported just over 2 million sheep and around 600,000 cattle. The trip to the Middle East can take up to 35 days, with three sheep confined to one square metre throughout the entire journey. Jammed-packed and squashed, these animals become heat stressed and overcrowded during transportation, subsequently resulting in the deaths of around 40,000 Australian sheep on vessels towards Middle East each year. Needless to say, the overseas journey in itself was only the beginning, and that true terror awaited these livestock once they reach their destinations. This brings us to the second ethical issue: handling and slaughter methods used on our animals. Upon arrival at countries with no animal welfare laws, Australian animals are no longer under our

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