Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also wish to speak on item 728 regarding the vessel Al Kuwait. I regard myself as having a little bit of authority in this area. I'm not only a fully qualified and registered veterinarian; I have been an Australian accredited vet and worked in the live export industry for over 30 years, including extensively in the preparation of livestock for export and also accompanying animals on export voyages. I don't know if anyone else in this place has undertaken livestock export voyages. Certainly quite a few people seem to have quite strong opinions on it, but I would suggest that they probably don't have relevant experience.

We in the veterinary profession all accept that the slaughter of livestock closest to the point where they originated is the ideal experience so that they are not transported. Again, that's ideal. We also accept that it's not practical. If you are a vegan and you want to have that position and you don't eat meat, that's fine. That's your choice. But for those of us who choose to eat meat it is not practical to have a cow, a sheep, a pig et cetera in our backyard to raise it up and slaughter it. I think we accept that that's just not the situation we live in. Therefore, animals do have to be transported for slaughter. They are transported regularly in Australia, generally by road, from their place of origin to abattoirs. We accept that occurring.

The industry of live exports overseas is to fulfil a demand, sometimes by our very close neighbours, for protein, for meat. There are many reasons why livestock are transported live as opposed to being slaughtered in Australia and the product being shipped overseas. One of the reasons is the fact that there's no cold chain in a lot of the countries that we export to and so there's no way to keep meat cold, chilled or frozen. People don't have that capacity in many of these countries and in many of these regions. So they require livestock to be transported alive to close to where people live so that they can be slaughtered and consumed fresh on the day. That's certainly the case throughout a lot of South-East Asian countries, and it's why we export extensively to South-East Asia.

As a veterinarian involved in the live export industry, I would like to take you through a little of the routine of the industry. Livestock are gathered from properties. They are transported to export hubs, mostly, where they are inspected by veterinarians that are accredited. They are inspected for their health and welfare, and animals that are not fit to travel are pulled out and receive treatment. Depending on where they are from and where they are going to, veterinarians will often conduct blood tests for various diseases, provide treatments for internal and external parasites, and provide vaccinations and so forth according to the protocol. All those animals that are assessed as fit to travel will be transported to the ship and loaded onto the ship, supervised by an Australian accredited stockperson and an Australian accredited vet.

Once on the ship, there are obviously rules regarding stocking densities for the different species that are transported. They will be housed in pens on the ship. A daily routine is that the stockperson and the vet will separately go around and inspect all of the animals. The stockpeople will pull out any animals that are looking unwell, are distressed or have anything wrong with them. They will be placed in a hospital pen. The veterinarian will then come and assess each one of the animals and assess what treatments are required. These ships carry extensive amounts of veterinary drugs and equipment for treatment of animals, so any animals requiring treatment will be treated by the vet as frequently as is required—that might be once a day or it might be three or four times a day—and they will be re-inspected every day. If any animals die on the voyage, the majority have a post-mortem conducted on them by the accredited vet to assess the reason for them dying, and that that is included in the report. Inspections continue throughout the day and reports are conducted. Independent observers are obviously free to go wherever they like on the ship and observe everything that's happening, and then they report on what they have observed. That's the daily routine of live export.

Having said that it would be ideal to slaughter animals right where they're going to be consumed, with that not being possible, this is absolutely the most humane way that we have to transport animals overseas so that our neighbours and countries we trade with are able to access the same sort of protein and food that we do. Some figures on this industry. Live export produces approximately $1.7 billion yearly to our economy and employs 10,000 or so people directly and indirectly. It's a very, very important industry and a big employer and supporter of families in rural, regional and remote communities.

The MV Al Kuwait departed at a time when we ideally don't have vessels departing, due to heat. I would like to read some of the comments of the independent observer. Extracts from the report of the independent observer are freely available on the internet. In the words of the independent observer:

All vessel staff from the master to members of the livestock crew were observed to have active involvement in the positive health and welfare outcomes for the sheep. The AAV—

the Australian accredited vet—

stockpersons and crew communicated effectively and worked well together.

They went on to say:

The observer commented that no sheep were observed to be in severe heat stress or distress from heat during the voyage.

Over 33,000 sheep were on this voyage. There were 28 mortalities. That's extremely low. None of these mortalities were due to heat stress. They were due to things such as liver disease, cardiac disease, infection and organ failure.

It's also worth noting that there were 103 sheep that were hospitalised and received treatment during this voyage. One hundred and two of these hospitalised animals recovered and were discharged. In a normal paddock situation the majority of these conditions that these animals were hospitalised for and treated for would not have been treated. A lot would not have been identified. They would not have been treated. It is the fact that these animals were inspected so regularly that they were pulled aside, they received treatment and they recovered. I would put to you that if the 103 out of this 33,000 had been at home in a paddock situation many of these animals would have suffered and died due to their conditions. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.