Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Those on the other side have been perpetuating this myth. What we had up to the point of the suspension was a self-regulated industry that clearly had failed animal welfare outcomes. There is no question that they had not met animal welfare outcomes that the community would expect. Those on the other side would want the trade to continue without managing animal welfare outcomes. What the suspension allowed to happen was that we could put in place a supply chain assurance which includes traceability, transparency and independent auditing as a vital part of the overall supply chain to ensure animal welfare outcomes, to ensure that we could meet internationally agreed norms of OIE guidelines, to ensure that these cattle exported from Australia would not be mistreated and that each individual consign­ment would be able to be tracked into the abattoir to ensure animal welfare outcomes. Prior to that, there was no guarantee. (Time expired)