It says much about the Agriculture Department — the bureaucrats who have known in perfect detail about the extent of animal torture on board live sheep export vessels to the Middle East for many years — couldn’t even bring themselves to name the company whose export licence they suspended on Friday. Forced by public outrage and a public humiliation by their own minister to finally take regulatory action of the kind they have studiously avoided taking for so long, the bureaucrats wouldn’t even name the company.
“The department takes those responsibilities very seriously,” the bureaucrats said in a short media release.
That’d be why Emanuel Exports has routinely violated the Department’s own ridiculously weak animal welfare standards and they’ve done precisely nothing. Over and over and over, Emanuel broke the rules and agriculture did nothing. That’s how “seriously” the bureaucrats in Canberra took their responsibilities, while sheep boiled to death in their own waste and vanished out of the chain of accountability, to wind up being slaughtered not in carefully supervised abattoirs but wherever the purchasers could offload them across the Middle East.
Indeed, far from properly regulating Emanuel Exports, the government lauded it as an export “success story” while live export research and propaganda outfit Livecorp gave them an award. Only in May, well after revelations of the sickening conditions on the Awassi Express, the bureaucrats allowed Emanuel to send another ship, the Al Shuwaikh, loaded with 60,000 sheep, to the Middle East — a vessel that docks from its return voyage in Western Australia today. That vessel is another of Emanuel’s ships from hell, which has lost thousands of sheep on previous voyages. As Michelle Grattan recently reported, agriculture minister David Littleproud caved to industry demands to let vessels like Al Shuwaikh continue operating longer despite failing welfare standards.
The whole sordid saga has demonstrated the Australian public service at its very worst. Bureaucrats captured by industry and so in thrall to their political masters as to be incapable of undertaking even the most pro forma regulation, then professing to be shocked when footage of the animal torture they have enabled emerges, and claiming they didn’t know what was going on. Watch for Emanuel’s export licence to be restored after a period of suspension, with blithe assurances from the same bureaucrats that everything is now fine — especially given another company, Livestock Shipping Services, has put a hold on further voyages while it reviews whether to remain in the industry. This despicable industry is tottering, but the instinct within government is to prop it up, not finish it off.
Having just read in Crikey about the weaponisation of suicide by our immigration authorities the irony of our government’s expressions of horror at the conditions on sheep ships strikes home all the more. But if we don’t get income from sheep exports where are we going to get the billions it costs us in payments to the governments concerned to keep our asylum seekers in their island hells?
To get Bernard on-side, just swap the sheep for some asylum seekers as it will stop them from drowning…
https://uat.crikey.com.au/2018/06/19/the-10-truths-the-left-can-never-admit/
Perhaps Mr Dutton’s next show of compassion might be the transfer of prisoners from Nauru and Manus onto a couple of disused sheep ships. A win-win situation for the Commonwealth and the ship owners.
Interesting that the Ag Dept bureaucrats are doing something now that Barnaby Joyce has been politically neutered.
Indeed. My first thought was one of sympathy for Agriculture Department bureaucrats who had (suffered?) Joyce as their minister for four years and 39 days from 18 September 2013 to 27 October 2017. Any attempts at dealing with this problem, had it come to their attention, would have been quickly quashed by the minister.
The catalogue of Joyce’s ministerial failures is long covering both Agriculture and Water Resources. And this was a minister against whose actions neither the LP nor the cabinet demurred when he moved the APVMA to his electorate, a move totally unplanned and uncosted. And yet the msm continues to focus on his private relationships while overlooking his appalling public performance.
Hmmmm
Interesting the determination to just wring those last few dollars from this despicable trade.
The morality of the gun runner/smack pusher – “if we don’t do it someone else will (and we’d lose all those lovely money”.
Having “take(n) those responsibilities very seriously” what do they then do with them?
Just one more of those “most humble day of my life” moments?
Crikey BK you set a high moral standard.Keep it up.
Australian farmers do a great job producing food for the world and are persecuted for it. They look after their animals ensuring food and water even in drought and it costs them dearly.Do you look after kangaroos in drought and bushfire?
Still, the consumers of those sheep aren’t White Heterosexual Men (whm) so I’m sure Caring BK will be willing to ensure they can meet their family’s protein needs.
We can call it the Crikey dietary guarantee fund.
Talking about consistency of principle is no substitute for action so let’s start the Crikey Automotive Levy. Every vehicle ,new or used, bought in Aus ,all transport fuel and all transport fares have a 33% levy to pay for fencing all roads thus preventing death and injury to native animals. That is consistent with the principles of caring and fairness applied to farmers.
Similarly BK (hopefully) and I advocate safe zones of fire resistant vegetation for native animals to escape bushfires.You’ll be in that wont you? Being burnt alive is very cruel. OH, I had better point out, lightning isn’t caused by whm .
Also sharkproof vests for seals, dolphins and baby whales etc. Being eaten alive is very cruel. The only reason I don’t include surfers is they are mostly whm.
Are you keeping up. Come on you giants of caring, tell us the health effects of insufficient protein and how much high quality protein is on those ships. Tell us how many kangaroos are killed on our roads each year. Don’t know? Don’t CAAARRRE?
Are you sure you really care about the sheep?
There is a law against cruelty to animals. It would be easy to apply. Fine breaches of the law with repeat offender increases and it becomes a business decision not a political one. Politicising and bullying of farmers (ok theyr’e whm) disappear in a puff of smoke . OOPS sorry was that your moral narcissist halo?
I propose a new debate. How to keep our narcissistic egos out of public forums.
Selective application of principles is an indicator of narcissism. This is how it works.
Big N enjoys feeling they are the moral elite (lovely). This requires two things.
1 “elite qualities” to indicate superiority
2 “inferior people” to provide ego boost by comparison.
The next step is vital. Normally claiming eliteness and superiority over anyone is frowned upon. However careful study of the bible of political correctness indicates
1 White heterosexual males are a legitimate target. There is an avalanche of vitriol to shout them down with.
2 Nowhere in the bible of political correctness does it say principles have to be applied consistently. So it’s ok to claim to care (for example) about one situation involving animal cruelty and ignore another. So that one claim to care elevates Big N to Moral High Ground and self aggrandizement is obscured. Looovvvllleeeyyy.