*Pic: www.liveexportshame.com
• Suzanne Cass in Comments: Following damning revelations over the last two weeks from the scandal plagued live animal export industry, a FLASH RALLY is being held this Saturday at 12 noon at Franklin Square in Hobart. DATE: SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2016. TIME: 12 NOON. PLACE: Franklin Square, Hobart. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Suzanne Cass, Lead Senate Candidate for Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Andrew Wilkie, Independent Member for Denison and Karen Bevis, Lead Senate Candidate for the Animal Justice Party (apologies from Peter West, General Manager, RSPCA Tasmania) …
• Suzanne Cass in Comments: There were no surprises in the revelations on the ABC’s 7.30 program about Australian cattle beng sledgehammered to death in Vietnam last week, and the apparent corruption in the ranks of the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, and that is truly saddening. As outrageous as all of this this is, and always has been, we must all remember that the standards we walk past (ignore) are the standards we accept. Gandhi said that ‘the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated’. If we were to judge Australia by those words, it’s a horror story …
I watched in horror last night as Australia’s Live Export Trade was further revealed by the 7.30 Report as the awful, indefensible trade it is …
And this is on top of last week’s shock-horror of the ‘trade’ to Vietnam ( TT: Sledgehammered to death … ).
The whistleblower, Dr Lynn Simpson, despite being involved in key advisory roles (and totally ignored), has had to spill the beans in desperation …
Watch the 7.30 Report HERE (if you can stomach it …).
Tasmania’s Denison MP Andrew Wilkie has made five legislative attempts to ban or restrict live exports … to no avail.
But he is still in there fighting … He says in today’s media release:
“Not one live export company has faced a single prosecution or suspension under the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System since it was set up. And when Dr Simpson did her job and wrote a report detailing the appalling conditions on board live export ships, she was sacked because the industry wanted her gone. What we need instead is an independent Office of Animal Welfare that’s doesn’t exist simply to do the bidding of the live export industry.”
*Lindsay Tuffin has been a journo since 1969, mainly in Tassie …
