Union & animal welfare group unite in call for live export ban

The meat processing industry and an animal welfare group have formed an unlikely alliance to call for the phasing out of live animal exports, claiming the trade was endangering thousands of Australian jobs.

Supported by Australia’s leading Muslim group, Muslims Australia, the meat processing businesses, the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union united to draw attention to the trade.

AMIEU federal branch spokesman Lee Norris said live exports were placing 35,000 Australian jobs at risk.

“Over 700 meat workers have lost their job or had their shifts cut back badly in the last six months alone,” Mr Norris said. 

But a leading livestock exporter described the 35,000 jobs figure “fanciful”.

Emanuel Exports Pty Ltd managing director Graham Daws said while demand for live exports and chilled and frozen meat exports had increased over the past decade, “one does not replace the other”.

Emanuel Exports is the largest sheep exports company in Western Australia, which accounts for 75-80 per cent of the nation’s annual live sheep trade.

The calls for a phase out of the live trade, proposed to occur over five years, were supported by Australia’s leading Muslim group.

Muslims Australia president Ikebal Adam Patel said he saw no religious or cultural reasons which would prevent live exports being phased out and replaced with frozen and chilled meat, slaughtered in accordance with Halal requirements.

“That would be a good way to go ... more humane,” Mr Patel said.

The predominantly Muslim countries of Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan account for 80 per cent of Australia’s live sheep exports according to a 2009 ACIL Tasman report prepared for the Protection of Animals society.

The report concluded that sheep meat processed domestically was worth approximately 20 per cent more to the Australian economy than equivalent live exports.

University of Melbourne Department of Agriculture academic Bill Malcolm criticised the

report and claimed this value-adding argument was “nonsense”.

“[The] argument is popular but spurious. What is often called value adding is ‘cost-adding’. Chilling and freezing are costs that have to be recouped,” the associate professor said.

While acknowledging that the live export trade remained vulnerable to foreign governments’ trade policies, Mr Malcolm also attacked the credibility of the union’s 35,000 jobs figure.

“The same arguments have been run forever; the reality is that meatworkers’ jobs in Australia depend on the total herd and flock size,” he said.

Live sheep exports dropped from around 4.2 million in 2008 to just over 3 million last year, according to federal government figures.