Australia bans all live cattle exports to Indonesia

[wautd]

Following this docu on animal maltreatment in Indonesia, and the outrage that followed:

Link

The Australian government has suspended live cattle exports to Indonesia until safeguards are adopted to end the brutal slaughter of animals.

The move follows an investigation into Indonesian abattoirs by Australia's ABC broadcaster, which showed graphic footage of animals being mistreated.

It prompted a public outcry and demands for the government to act.

Last week, Canberra suspended exports to abattoirs shown in the programme, but now it has issued a blanket ban.

Farmers' warning

The ban is the result of public revulsion and outrage at the gruesome footage from Indonesia's abattoirs that was broadcast last week in an ABC TV documentary.

It showed steers being whipped, beaten and slashed repeatedly, and suffering terrible pain before they are slaughtered.

Australia first announced a ban on live exports to the 12 abattoirs featured in the programme.

But the public demanded more, signing online petitions to halt the trade with Indonesia and pressing lawmakers in Canberra to bring in a complete ban.

Butchers have also reported that beef sales are down by up to 15%.

An early indication that a ban was about to come into effect came on Tuesday, when about 2,000 cattle were not allowed to board a ship in Western Australia that was about to set sail for Indonesia.

Now has come the announcement that exports will be halted until safeguards are put in place in Indonesia to safeguard the animals.

Australia exports more than 700,000 cattle each year - the vast majority to Indonesia.

However, Australian farmers have warned that a ban would destroy many rural livelihoods.

Nice that Australia chooses animal welfare over pure profit. Hopefully their stance will chance something in Indonesia, because there's also the risk that Indonesia says fuck it, we'll get our cattle somewhere else.

Videos of the docu in this link. Warning: may be shocking (I couldn't dare watching it myself)

[mr friendly guy]

I have seen bits and pieces of the doco on Australian television. Wuss. Just kidding, its pretty graphic stuff and I wouldn't recommend it unless you like to engage in torture pressured interrogation.

Any way, it seems like some Indonesian abattoirs do kill them humanely with the stunning method used over here. The problem arises with how some people interpret the Koran. Basically the animal must be alive, facing Mecca etc with a few esoteric rules. I don't see how stunning them discounts this, since a stunned animal is still alive.

However apparently some Imans don't consider this fits in their version of Halal. Presumably "alive" to these guys must mean moving up and about and conscious.

[Broomstick]

Even if the animal, due to some obscure religious text, "must" be alive, there are still ways to minimize pain and suffering - typically a slash to the major blood vessels in the neck with a very sharp knife, done properly the animal bleeds out extremely rapidly, and it doesn't require beating or frightening the animal first. Anything beyond that is just cruel for no damn good reason.

[Jaepheth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read that in China, and this possibly extends to other countries in South-East Asia, it is believed that adrenaline makes the meat sweeter. Which is why some animals are skinned alive before butchering.

[SCRawl]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've read that in China, and this possibly extends to other countries in South-East Asia, it is believed that adrenaline makes the meat sweeter. Which is why some animals are skinned alive before butchering.

I've heard that it makes the meat tougher, which is why we go for the instant kill method in this part of the world. The "skinned alive" thing...yikes, that's a pretty harsh way to make sweeter meat.

[Jaepheth]

Found a source:

... Some of these dogs are first tortured to increase their adrenaline levels BECAUSE IT IS BELIEVED THAT THIS MAKES THE MEAT TASTE SWEETER, then skinned alive...

[wautd]

Knowing China, I wouldn't be surprised at their complete lack of respect for animal wellfare. Hell, during the olympics they were selling keychains with live goldfish in them.

[MarshalPurnell]

Chinese or East Asian slaughtering methods have nothing to do with Indonesia, where the overwhelming majority of butchering is supposed to be done according to Dhabihah rites. The religious laws of Islam forbid the mistreatment of an animal to be slaughtered, and prescribe a swift single stroke with a razor-sharp knife that cuts the carotid artery, jugular vein, and windpipe so that the animal bleeds out swiftly. The Australian documentary shows a few Indonesian slaughterhouses that do not comply with those religious guidelines or the legal regulations of Indonesia. That is, fundamentally, a criminal matter although probably also common given that Indonesia is a poor Third World country with the usual staggeringly corrupt and inept law enforcement apparatus that implies.

Of course Dhabihah does not include stunning the animal and there is significant debate among Muslims as to whether or not stunning is permissible, with most saying no due to the risk the animal will die of something other than exsanguination. Some people have conflated the lack of stunning with the cruelty shown in the documentary and have, in effect, called for Australia to ban exporting cattle to Indonesia at all unless they drop Dhabihah slaughter. That, honestly, is no different than demanding a ban on Shechita (kashrut) slaughter, which is the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim guidelines and mostly identical. I do not think that is a reasonable position, whereas demanding tighter guidelines and enforcement against outright cruelty to animals is obviously called for.

[Norade]

Chinese or East Asian slaughtering methods have nothing to do with Indonesia, where the overwhelming majority of butchering is supposed to be done according to Dhabihah rites. The religious laws of Islam forbid the mistreatment of an animal to be slaughtered, and prescribe a swift single stroke with a razor-sharp knife that cuts the carotid artery, jugular vein, and windpipe so that the animal bleeds out swiftly. The Australian documentary shows a few Indonesian slaughterhouses that do not comply with those religious guidelines or the legal regulations of Indonesia. That is, fundamentally, a criminal matter although probably also common given that Indonesia is a poor Third World country with the usual staggeringly corrupt and inept law enforcement apparatus that implies.

Of course Dhabihah does not include stunning the animal and there is significant debate among Muslims as to whether or not stunning is permissible, with most saying no due to the risk the animal will die of something other than exsanguination. Some people have conflated the lack of stunning with the cruelty shown in the documentary and have, in effect, called for Australia to ban exporting cattle to Indonesia at all unless they drop Dhabihah slaughter. That, honestly, is no different than demanding a ban on Shechita (kashrut) slaughter, which is the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim guidelines and mostly identical. I do not think that is a reasonable position, whereas demanding tighter guidelines and enforcement against outright cruelty to animals is obviously called for.

How is asking relgious wackos to kill animals the same why everybody else does an unreasonable position? They aren't required to eat meat nor is anybody forcing them to believe in an ancient text.

[Broomstick]

When done according to the written instruction as actually written, both Muslim and Jewish slaughter practices are, in my opinion, reasonably humane. They're quick and effective. Now, something like captive-bolt killing might be even better (if nothing else, it's less messy as you don't have a living heart pumping out blood through severed neck vessels) but until all the other, worse, non-religion mandated practices are eliminated I don't feel a pressuring need to go after the religious slaughter practices.

[madd0ct0r]

I thought the aversion to bolt-stunning was the risk of blood being mixed through the meat (well, head/brain obviously)
Since the animal has to have all blood drained to be halal, this can bugger the system a little.

In the UK Beef Brain and Spinal Chord are on the verboten list (BSE) so presumably it's less of an issue. Elsewhere in the world, brain is quite the delicacy.

[Korto]

As far as I can see, the original rules were created to try and ensure the meat was wholesome (animal must be alive before being, well, killed), and the animal killed as humanely as possible with the tools of the time. The idea that maybe stunning is not acceptable seems to be completely forgetting the spirit while reading too much into the letter. Of course the rules make no mention of stunning. Stunning didn't exist. They don't mention massive electric shocks or putting a bullet through the brain either, although I imagine the author would have found those methods perfectly acceptable too, had they been available.

But a single sharp clean cut seems reasonable, so all those people seen not doing so were breaking those rules, and as for some of the other practises, I believe the only reason they weren't explicitly ruled out is because the author never dreamt of a decent man doing such a thing.

As for the blanket ban, it seems to me to be as poorly a thought-out action as the sudden axing of the insulation scheme, leaving a vast majority of blameless people completely in the lurch without warning or any idea what next. It's like the government's taken it's instructions from the Iraq invasion, where you plan how to invade, but don't think at all about what happens afterwards.
If instead they put in a permanent regulation that any slaughterhouse that has an allegation backed up with hard evidence against it is individually hit with a 6 month ban, that should do the job. There will be enough Animal Rights people around to do the leg-work, and it doesn't hurt those who've tried to do the right thing.

[Chris OFarrell]

Never going to happen, there was (and still is) a LOT of preasure in the backbench of the Government, as well as from the wider community, to utterly halt ALL Live exports, forever. The Animial rights activists, if you parden the phrase, can smell blood in the water, and frankly were trying to kill the industry all together. As well as at least one key Federal independent (not Emperor Kator, I think it was Tony Windsor?) and the Greens.

A softly softly approach of cutting off a few places and more if they show up as not meeting standards, would have simply come across as WAY too soft and resulted in a public backlash. WIth a Six Month ban, the Government is thus able to appease people, look like its providing a reasnoable timeframe for the Indonesians to get into shape, and then keeps the industry alive in the long term, at the cost of some short term pain.

It was really the minimal stance they could take.