Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and I will take this opportunity to say a few words. It is very important that we debate this matter this morning and as a matter of urgency, because the fact is that a great many members of the community are expecting this parliament to finally act on the cruelty in the live animal export trade and in particular the terrible cruelty being suffered by sheep in the long-haul sheep trade to the Middle East. It is an undeniable fact that the live animal export trade is systemically cruel. How many more exposes do we need to see before this place understands it is systemically cruel and shuts it down? It is also an undeniable fact that the only way to end the cruelty is to put an end to the trade. Who can forget those shocking images from the Awassi Expresssome time ago? It was a voyage on which tens of thousands of sheep suffered horrid conditions: the filth, the heat, the overcrowding and those images of lambs that were born on the vessel—when it is not even allowed for there to be pregnant sheep on such a vessel—just suffocating or drowning in the faeces and the filth, and the sheep panting. It was a voyage on which thousands of sheep died. And don't believe the nonsense from some in the industry that that was an exceptional episode—that that is not the normal situation on those sheep ships on the long haul to the Middle East—because all of the evidence is that that was a typical voyage. It was an insight into the way the industry has worked, is working now and will work into the future.

Of course, the Awassi Express was just the latest revelation. What about the images we saw of Australian sheep being buried alive in Pakistan? And it is not just sheep. What about the images that came out of the slaughterhouses in Indonesia several years ago? What about the reports of cruelty to Australian livestock in Vietnam, in Malaysia and in any number of countries throughout the Middle East, including countries that you would think would know better—countries like Israel and Turkey? The fact is that the evidence is in. It's been in for ages. It is a systemically cruel trade, and the only way to end the cruelty is to end the trade, starting with getting rid of the long-haul export of live sheep to the Middle East.

And do you know what? That will be in this country's best interests, in at least three obvious ways. For a start—

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