Contrary to Mr McGauran's reassurances, that Australia's MOUs with the Middle East ensures the humane treatment of our animals prior to and during slaughter, the portrayal on last night's ABC 7.30 Report revealed that the extreme cruelty perpetrated by barbarians in the Middle East is flourishing. The MOUs obviously have had the impact of a soggy piece of lettuce.

The gut wrenching, ABC report showed footage of hog-tied animals, shoved in car boots. Others crammed into trucks, exhausted and distressed. Live animals being dragged backwards by one leg to have their throats cut. The ABC advised that the abominable treatment of a tethered bull was too heinous to show on the programme.

It is obvious that the torture of our animals in the ME, perpetrated by sadists who detest animals, is endemic, McGauran defended the actions by protesting that the live animal industry is worth one billion dollars.

However, the following is an excerpt from his very own department:

"Australia has developed a significant trade in meat to Muslim markets in the Middle East and Asia. In 2005 the total value of processed meat exports was over $5.9 billion (compared to around $700 million for live exports), of which around $310 million involved exports to the major Muslim markets. This includes approximately $203 million to the Middle East." April 2007

It is obvious that the processed meat exports are more economically profitable than the live exports. Are we to continue our silence, thereby being judged for our endorsement of the cruelty to our animals in other countries, or is the political corpse of the mawkish McGauran imminent?

"It is obvious that the processed meat exports are more economically profitable than the live exports."

You are once again writing uninformed nonsense Dickie. Right now
a sheep sold locally for processing, is worth around 15-20$.
The same sheep on a boat, is worth 60$. You as a farmer hater,
clearly don't care about farmers incomes, but they do.

I could take a video camera and go around Australia, and show
sheep hogtied in the boots of cars, their throats slit etc.
The thing is, what was not shown, was the many animals slaughtered
in the Middle East, that are treated ok.

Millions of animals are slaughtered in the Middle East every year,
with or without Australian animals. Australian farmers are the
only ones bankrolling training, equipment and better handling
methods.

If Animals Australia really cared, they would join us in bringing
about change in the ME. There are many cheap and simple things
that could be done. But nope, they do nothing in the Middle
East, just rattling the tin here, as they sit by their computers.

But then I have yet to see vegetarians sincere about bringing
about change, they would rather shut us all down and stop all
meat eating. It ain't gonna happen!

Yabby

You would be well advised to take your argument to Minister McGauran. It was from his department that I derived those figures.

Your advice that animals are also treated badly in Australia simply confirms my belief that Australia is a nation of shame.

"I could take a video camera and go around Australia, and show
sheep hogtied in the boots of cars, their throats slit etc."

So why don't you report these atrocities to the authorities, Yabby?

I trust all fairminded people will continue to voice their objections to the maggots in power who operate solely to make a profit from the misery and despair of other species.

Dickie, I don't need to go to Mr McGauran. I only need to open
a farming paper and read the market quotes, or ring up a buyer
and ask the present price. The local meat industry has clearly
stated that they are not a charity, they will buy livestock
as cheaply as possible. So the live trade is a saviour for
farmers.

Hogtieing a sheep is standard practise on every farm. They even
make and sell sheep cuffs, which are easier to use. Thats how
farmers move individual sheep around farms, alot of the time.
You think its cruel, I don't. Its not a poodle.

Tying a sheeps legs and slaughtering it for meat, is as old as
Australian farming. Shearing teams often take one home for
meat, in the boot.

The thing is, how they showed sheep slaughtered on that video
is a lose lose all round. The sheep are stressed, so the meat
is tough, its labour inefficient, and a hard way to do things.
Some simple panels, a race and kill box, worth a few bucks
would solve all that, better for the sheep too.

At the end of the day Arabs are sick of Europeans wanting to
boss them around, but there is also a requirment that they
be kind to animals, according to the Koran. Sometimes how
you say things matters more then what you say. There is a major
opportunity to bring about change in Middle East slaughter
practises, with a bit of money and time invested. Slaughtering
animals will happen with or without Australian livestock.

Yabby: "Right now a sheep sold locally for processing, is worth around 15-20$. The same sheep on a boat, is worth 60$."

If that's true, then Yabhy makes a very salient point. It may be the case in WA, but where I live in southern Qld the local sheep farmers don't have that choice, and in any case we have a local mutton and goat abattoir that produces almost exclusively for export - much of it Halal.

Also, the abattoir is not only the principal employer for our little town, but also one of the major employers in the district. As a small businessman, I've noticed the ebb and flow of money and people in the town for a few years now - what with local fortunes almost completelely tied to the weather and international markets and currencies - and I think that ultimately a live export trade from this part of the country would be counterproductive overall, in economic, social and probably animal welfare grounds.

However, WA is different, certainly in terms of sheep. Indeed, my first real experience of agriculture was on a wheat, sheep and oats farm in SW WA in the 1970s. Even then the local abbatoir was employing Muslim Malays from Christmas Island - one benefit of which was that there was a brilliant Malay restaurant in Katanning in 1975... but I digress - the point is that there was a labour shortage generally then, as there is now, and abbatoirs by nature are the last places where most people would choose to work if they have a choice.

On topic, the economics are probably pretty much as Yabby puts them. I think that it's pretty awful in general how animals are treated at abbatoirs anywhere, but killing animals is never very pleasant. From WA, in terms of transport costs and relative labour shortages, it undoubtedly does pay more to export live sheep. I agree that we should do everything we can to ensure that they are handled humanely, but ultimately the market will rule. The best we can do is try and influence it.

Yabby,

Your moral and pretentious ineptitude knows no bounds.

Australia has been exporting live animals to the Middle East since 1960.

Your masters have, no doubt, been marauding the ME for some 47 years and we have yet to hear one protest from these money makers of misery.

"Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble them, do not harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, do not work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greed, defile the earth by your actions, and alas, only you leave the traces of your foulness."

-Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)