Australia suspended live cattle exports to 11 Indonesian abattoirs today and announced a review into the A$320 million (RM1 billion) trade after graphic footage was broadcast of Australian cattle being inhumanely slaughtered.
“I have decided to halt the trade of live animals to the facilities identified by the footage. I reserve the right to add further facilities to the banned list,” Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig said in a statement.
“I will appoint an independent reviewer to investigate the complete supply chain for live exports up to and including the point of slaughter,” he said.
Australian television yesterday aired footage of cattle being beaten, whipped and kicked prior to slaughter in Indonesia, prompting a political outcry.
“It exposed nothing short of shocking cruelty for Australian livestock,” said independent MP Andrew Wilkie, whose backing is vital for Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s one-seat government.
Wilkie and independent Senator Nick Xenophon today unveiled legislation calling for the immediate ban on live animal exports to Indonesia and a full ban of live animal exports to all nations within three years.
“The pictures we saw last night were horrific, and if it was happening here in Australia, those people would be arrested and prosecuted,” Xenophon told a news conference.
Wilkie said he understood the sensitivity of diplomatic relations with neighbouring Indonesia, an important export market for Canberra and a fellow member of the Group of 20 rich nations, but it was clear there was a “systemic problem with Australia’s whole live export industry”.
Bayu Krisnamurthi, Indonesia’s Vice Minister for the Coordination of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Maritime Affairs, called for calm to avoid a trade dispute.
“Australia should understand that the level of development of Indonesians is different from the level of development of Australians,” he told reporters, according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper.
A senior Indonesian livestock official said the country was already working to improve animal handling standards and foreshadowed talks between Jakarta and Canberra to avert a ban.
“ABC’s footage was on traditional abattoirs, they didn’t show modern abattoirs,” Prabowo Respatyo Caturroso, the livestock director general at Indonesia’s Agricultural Ministry, told Reuters.
“If (a ban) is what Australia’s government has decided, it is their right. It now depends on our diplomacy and negotiation with the Australian government,” he said.
Australia exports about 500,000 head of cattle a year to Indonesia, representing about 60 per cent of its live cattle trade.
An investigation by Australian animal rights activists in March found slaughter boxes provided to Indonesian abattoirs by Australia’s livestock industry contributed to the inhumane deaths of millions of animals over a decade, using methods barred under Australian and international guidelines.
Agriculture minister Ludwig said it was clear animal welfare reforms in the live export industry had not gone far enough.
Indonesia is Australia’s 13th largest export partner, with two-way trade worth A$9.8 billion in 2010, with the live animal market being Australia’s second most important behind the Middle East.
Australia’s previous conservative government banned live cattle and sheep exports to Saudi Arabia between 1991 and 2000 after hundreds of cattle died from heat stress en route to the Persian Gulf. The country’s cattle industry has already moved to suspend supply to three Indonesian abattoirs.
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