The Independent Member for Denison, Andrew Wilkie, has condemned the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s report into the 2012 Pakistan sheep abuse.
Mr Wilkie said the Department’s investigation was critically flawed.
“20,000 Australian sheep were brutally slaughtered in Pakistan with some bludgeoned to death and others buried alive,” Mr Wilkie said.
“The fact is the exporter, Wellard Rural Exports, had its shipment of sheep blocked from Bahrain due to an apparent disease threat. Wellard then dumped the sheep in Pakistan without informing the Pakistani authorities about the suspected disease risk.
“That the Department’s investigation concluded that Wellard was not at fault is simply beyond belief and makes a mockery of the Government’s claim that their new regulatory framework holds exporters to account for mistreatment of animals.
“Here we have 20,000 sheep slaughtered in the most brutal way imaginable and the exporter doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
“This investigation by the Department was more a PR exercise than an honest attempt to find the facts of the matter.
“This shocking episode proves beyond doubt the need to abolish the live export trade or at least establish an Independent Office of Animal Welfare.
• ABC: Farmer guilty of 200 cow cruelty charges in long running court case
A former Tasmanian dairy farmer has been found guilty of nearly 200 animal cruelty charges in a long-running court case.
The Magistrates Court in Launceston heard Roderic Neil Mitchell (above) starved and neglected dairy cows on his former Redpa property in the north-west in 2007.
Magistrate Reg Marron told the court that all of the charges had been proven, except for two relating to the use of ear tags.
The court is hearing sentencing submissions.
