Absolutely agree with Mr Bagaric, although given that citizens are sometimes required to give up their homes (with compensation) for the greater good, I don't see why the "industry" must be phased out. I can see the point of compensation - to some extent - but given that this is not a new issue, producers have been forewarned. They continue at their own risk. There is no reason why this trade should not stop immediately.

It is also a great pity that Mr Bagaric's concern for the suffering of animals isn't also extended to his fellow human beings. There is a certain irony in being against the suffering of animals but happy to inflict torture on people.

It is so easy for those who want to stop the live export trade to do so. All they have to do is put their money, not some one else's, where their mouth is.

They can attend the sales, buy the stock, pay for it to be slaughtered in Oz, then export the product. What could be simpler? Hell if it's such a good idea, they should make a quid at it. But no, not them, They definitely will not put their money at risk, just everyone elses.

Until Mirko & the rest of the noisy mob put up their own wealth, they will be nothing but a noisy bunch of slobs, trying to force their will on others, worthy of nothing but disgust.

Do gooders! Year right, provided every one else picks up the bill for their satisfaction.

Sheep can only be sold to middle east markets because of religious requirment that live sheep must have their throats cut. Well, what to do? Obviously we can;t afford to slaughter sheep humanely.
Money makes the economy go round and gives farmers their living.
So we must ignore the cruelty of packing thousands of animals in ships and then sending them to their fate....they are only animals after all. They are all at our mercy. And we put money before mercy....it was ever so. There are few signs that mankind is becoming more civilised....so despair those who imagined that we were.

Gawd, more city slickers commenting about an industry which they
simply don't understand and ignoring the objective data. Fact is
that sheep gain weight on the boats, so are much like a floating
feedlot. Do you plan to ban feedlots too now?

Sheep don't yet have Medicare in Australia, so around 5% die in
the paddocks each year, from dog attacks, flystrike, pneumonia,
snake bite and a host of other diseases and reasons. That adds up
to around 3 million a year, given our present sheep population.
That makes Mirko's figures take on a different light. 2% losses
in feedlots is considered normal. Pneumonia, refusal to eat,
acidosis, snake bite, all part of it.

In New Zealand, millions of new born lambs die due to cold
weather and storms. Should New Zealand now stop lamb production?

Australia is unable to ship mutton and lamb to many markets, due to
trade barriers. When will our city slicker friends get off their
butts and open up those markets? Right now our processors can't sell
the meat that they presently produce and rely on overseas workers
for labour, as Aussies don't want the jobs.

If you people really cared about animal welfare, you'd be doing
something about the hordes of wild dogs out there, originating
from Govt land, where they are out of control. They rip baby
calves to death and many sheep farmers have given up, due to the
losses. But no, we'll attack the live trade, as we can sit by
our computers, write a bit of nonsense and some people take it
seriously. The internet gives any fool the opportunity to promote
their views. The live trade debate is full of vegans, housewives and
now seemingly lawyers, who simply don't know their facts.

The facts are that the sheep farmers, are only interested in the monetry return. They care nothing of the barbaric cruelty those animals suffer, and Yabby you can BS all you want, but a broad church of the public do know the facts and are not happy with what is allowed in a so called civil society.

*but a broad church of the public do know the facts *

Well that is the whole point Kipp, they don't know the facts.
They have been sucked in by a bunch of vegans who generally know
nothing at all about livestock, the pet poodle or cat being their
limit of knowledge.

Qualified people are needed, not hysterical urban housewives.

While it's sometimes great to dream of the perfect world, the reality is this is Australia and, if we were to process these animals here, our freezers would be full to the brim, as our production costs are simply mind blowing, when compared to foreign countries the likes on Indonisian and as such, we simply couldn't sell the meat at a profit.

Like it or not, this is the reason live export exists today, costs.

Furthermore, our processed meat export market has a limited lifespan, as the likes of Brazil and Argintinia' s beef herds make our herds look like a hobby farm.

Look out when they decide to ramp up thier export markets.

sheep farmers, are only interested in the monetry return
Kipp,
Just as city slickers are only interested in creaming off the tax dollars for absolutely nothing in return, paid by the farmers in this civil society.

I have stolen this idea from some old ant-Christian Graffiti in Melbourne. When Mirko can enter the lion enclosure at Melbourne Zoo and convince them that killing herbivores is wrong he can knock on my door!

How it shames and demeans every decent Australian, seeing these apologists for egregious animal abuse appearing, every time attention is drawn to the horrors of the live export industry. Those who comment here, have you seen the conditions on these ships, 3 sheep per square metre?
Since AQIS does not inspect the animals, and the exporter-employed veternarian may only inspect some of them, there is no way Australia can guarantee that there are not diseased animals on these old ships - in fact, veterinarians who have worked in the trade attest to animals who are latent, passive or active carriers of salmonella/enteritis complex, keratoconjunctivitis (pink eye) and scabby mouth are loaded with monotonous regularity into conditions totally conducive to the transmission of these diseases to every animal on the shipment.
That is how the most recent scandals have occurred. One shipment rejected by Kuwait and one by Bahrain, with horrific consequences for the animals. And let's not forget the breeding animals in Qatar, and the rejected cattle in Indoesia and Egypt.
You apologists should look at the video from Pakistan that is publicly available. And that's just the sanitised version.
But you don't care, as long as you've got your money.
I don't think Australian taxpayers should have to compensate you farmers not to abuse your animals so heinously (the ones that put on weight must be the ones that didn't die - and that's a baseless industry claim anyway ... the vets also attest to untruthful record keeping in respect of numbers loaded and mortalities too).
Australia is deeply, deeply ashamed.

As a vegetarian who is repulsed by these practices, I must say this:

Do condemn those who are cruel to animals, do name them, do shame them, do boycott them, do avoid social and business contacts with them, boycott also those shipping companies who carry their trade, do demonstrate in front of their farms, I'm almost even tempted to suggest throwing rotten tomatoes...

But do not criminalize what they are doing.

Let them receive their punishment in hell, or let their guilty conscience make them ill and suffer as their animals do, but once you start legislating against one practice that you don't like, it is a slippery-slope and soon enough there will be legislation against the things that are most important in your own life, that are most dear to you but which others happen to hate.

Everyone has one or more habits which others hate - would yours come up next to become illegal? Perhaps you are pulling your nose or scratching your bottom, or perhaps you have sex outside marriage, perhaps you like howling at the moon, perhaps you like BDSM, perhaps you like traveling overseas in massive carbon-consuming planes, or perhaps you are religious - no matter what your habit is, once you criminalize other people's practices, your own are in line too.

Government is essentially based on violence and immorality, no less than those who treat their animals so badly - never trust and entrust them to become your guardians of morality.

...As a direct consequence of the inability of lower order animals to manipulate their environment, the profound responsibility of higher order homo-sapiens towards animal welfare, (in any animal husbandry enterprise), becomes a morality based imperative.

...Live animal exporting is not immoral in itself, since to manipulate the environment of animals when subjected to transporting conditions, is not an uncommon practice in the grazing industry. Moving animals from point “A” to point “B” is historically acceptable.
As a consequence, the live animal exporting enterprise “as a whole”, should not be subjected to destabilising influences of sectionalised partisan attacks on the whole of industry.

...It is legitimate though to subject criticism of the industry towards areas of animal “husbandry” where animals are caused “undue stress”, by a manipulated environment offered during transportation, (for example, conditions on the ship). For live animal exporting to continue under legitimate Government and community support, the highest standards of animal husbandry must not only be seen to work, but must have a genuine base of empathy shown towards animal welfare, by all sections of the industry and all workers involved in the process.

Deary me, it sounds like our old friend Nicky might be back, this time
under another name of Shannon. The writing style is certainly much
the same, so are the same old points, which have long ago been refuted.

Nicky and her band of vegans have simply never thought this through,
apart from calling for the end of livestock farming altogether.

The live trade is vital, as we have seen in times of drought, where
a million sheep can be moved quite quickly, rather than starve.
No the boats arn't old, in fact many are quite new and purpose built,
with more new boats on the way.

No Australia is not against the trade. As it happens around 80% of
Australians still buy cage eggs, so some survey done hardly reveals
their accurate opinions. In fact less than 400 out of a population
of 2 million turned up at a demo in Fremantle, hardly overwhelming
support, when 60'000 will bother to go to a football game.

Scabby mouth and pink eye are common diseases in Australia. They
do not interfere with meat and animals can still be slaughtered. They
are also common in the ME. A vet will tell you with both diseases,
to leave them alone and they will cure themselves within a few days.

So Shannon's comment about disease are about as signficant as saying
that the local Westfield shopping centre is full of diseased people.

Industry has to solve this problem and industry is in fact doing it.
Live sheep numbers are down to half what they used to be and some
live shippers are even buying abattoirs, to ship both meat and live
sheep. If only they could find the staff required. Aussies don't want
the jobs, too much hard work for most.

Best to come clean Shannon, tell us your true agenda. You want
Aussies to stop eating meat altogether and livestock farmers to
stop farming livestock. No need to pretend further.

Live export in itself should not pose any real problems but as many pointed out here it is cruel when animals are simply stuffed into tight space & left there with only the barest of care. The problem is that the farmers need the money so that they can try to satisfy insatiable Governments which in turn squander those taxes on the just as insatiable do-gooders & other hangers on. The hypocrisy never seems to end as long as money is the focal point.