The animals just can’t take a trick. First it was the cattle, again being sent to Indonesia this week after the federal government ended the suspension of the trade that it imposed at the beginning of June. Now it’s the sheep, stranded off Port Adelaide after the ship they are in developed mechanical failure en route to Qatar.
And this morning, as expected, the House of Representatives unceremoniously rejected a private member’s bill, introduced by the Greens’ Adam Bandt, to end the live animal export trade. Government and opposition both opposed the bill, even though it is not seriously disputed that public opinion is strongly against the trade.
Of course, the public doesn’t always get what it says it wants, and often for good reasons. Many reforming measures — such as ending the White Australia Policy, abolishing capital punishment and cutting tariff protection — were probably contrary to public opinion at the time. And many policy issues have hidden complexities that opinion polls are unlikely to capture.
Nonetheless, it’s noteworthy that on a simple right-or-wrong issue like this, which has been around for many years and extensively debated, our politicians should be so insensitive to what their constituents want.
It’s a classic public choice trap (logging in old-growth forests is another): the industry’s interest in the issue is heavily concentrated in a few people, who therefore have the incentive to spend a lot of time and money on lobbying.
The contrary interest of the mass of the public is widely diffused. And of course those who are most adversely affected — the animals themselves — don’t get counted at all.
Some would argue that our concern about the live export trade is unduly selective. Tyler Cowen last week at Marginal Revolution criticised activists for attacking the treatment of Australian livestock in Turkey, saying “I guess they don’t care about the Turkish animals”.
But while it’s undeniable that there has been a thread of “blame the foreigners” (and especially “blame the Muslims”) in both the Indonesia and Turkey stories, it’s unfair to expect campaigners in Australia to focus indiscriminately on cruelty all over the world. Reasonably enough, our prime concern is with what the Australian government allows and what Australian actions could stop.
In general, it’s just not true that public concern is limited to Australia’s own animals — think of the campaigns against Japanese whaling, or to rescue bears in China, or to stop elephant slaughter in Africa. But when Australians are sending animals on long, nightmarish sea voyages to be tortured overseas, with the active encouragement of our government, that’s something for which we have a special responsibility.
It’s also sometimes said that concern for animals displaces concern for humans: that we are wasting our compassion on the beasts instead of working to end, for example, Australia’s ghastly treatment of asylum seekers.
But the truth is the opposite. Historically, although there are exceptions (yes, we know Hitler was a vegetarian), the two go together: empathy breeds empathy while cruelty breeds cruelty, and we can tell a lot about a society’s values by the way it treats its most vulnerable creatures. (As many readers pointed out when my friend Guy Rundle trotted out this argument a couple of months ago.)
The public’s opposition to the live animal trade is one of several signs that Australians have a bit more of a sense of basic humanity than our governments give us credit for.
Is it really a “simple right-or-wrong issue”? Does anyone think that stopping Australian live exports will put a significant dent in locally-slaughtered meat demand in the destination countries? Accordingly, the practical upshot of a live export ban will be substitution of animals from local or other sources, with every chance that they will cop the same or worse abattoir treatment. It’s not at all obvious to me how this outcome is ‘right’.
I agree with Mark D. And Rundle was essentially correct about the Brits (of course I have a well established anti-pommie prejudice–from too much direct experience; since my article (below) I would give the riots as evidence to support my/Rundle’s case.).
I do not agree with your statement that “The public’s opposition to the live animal trade is one of several signs that Australians have a bit more of a sense of basic humanity than our governments give us credit for.” Indeed I think it is quite the opposite: a cheap (no cost to themselves–at least no short-term cost; of course being Australians there is no other type of cost they consider) poorly-reasoned emotional reaction. Instead of just throwing our hands in the air as if we can do nothing–which is what a total ban is–we could actually be part of the solution. It would not be easily. It would require diplomatic and cultural sensitivities (now it is my turn to throw my hands in the air!) but personally I do not believe it is beyond practicality in Indonesia.
[(crikey.com.au/2011/07/01/animal-slaughter-the-world-isnt-all-about-us/)
Animal slaughter: the world isn’t all about us
by Michael R James, Friday, 1 July 2011
And Guy Rundle is surely inarguably correct when he wrote last week that we must place humans above animals on any scale of concern or action. Anyone who has lived in the UK notices that the Brits appear to lavish more concern and certainly more charity donations on animal welfare than child welfare. One can go all psycho-analytical on this subject — from 18th century workhouses filled with children to the rich shuffling their brats off to boarding schools as soon as they can walk, or indeed nannies and wet nurses for infants of the rich — but there does seem to be some kind of British legacy in the Australian mentality. I agree with Rundle too that there is some kind of deep linkage in many dark Australian souls between uncharitable rejection of asylum seekers who arrive by boat and the incongruity of easy condemnation of the live cattle trade.
Does this mean we should have no concern for animal cruelty? Of course not.
…….
There is a rational solution to the cattle trade brutality but assuredly it is not to try to sweep it under the carpet so we don’t have to let it disturb our lifestyle obsessions — especially as we hypocritically continue to eat battery-farmed chickens, eggs and pork. We could actually make an impact (very carefully) on Indonesian practices that seem unnecessarily brutal — to us and many Indonesians, not to mention Islamic practice.
But we need to step outside our miserable narrow selfish obsessions for a millisecond. The world is not all about us and our sensitivities.]
Slaughtering animals through draining their blood is an ancient food hygeine practice that is mentioned in the Bible. Modern methods such as refrigeration and freezing of meat are only a few decades old and the infrastructure for it in developing countries is patchy at best.
So a live animal in developing countries has the double attraction of being fresh meat close to the point of consumption as well as control of traditionally accepted slaughtering methods.
Animal welfare is of course an absolute important issue and nobody would endorse the appalling practices shown on Four Corners recently. But this does not speak to the whole question of the live animal export trade. A slaughterhouse is never a pleasant sight and just because we all watched a confronting TV programme hasn’t stopped us eating meat.
The meat industry can get this issue right without ceasing live animal exports. Maybe in 50 years when developing countries have the necessary infrastructure.
“It’s a classic public choice trap (logging in old-growth forests is another): the industry’s interest in the issue is heavily concentrated in a few people, who therefore have the incentive to spend a lot of time and money on lobbying.”
That is a classic over-simplification and I’m extremely disappointed that you should be so naive. It’s rare to find anyone – industry or otherwise – advocating old growth logging, by most accepted definitions. Managed native forests, or regrowth from events such as the 1930’s fires in Gippsland are another matter, and generally lumped in, by the naive and ignorant, because they may look big and old, with truly old growth.
As I understand it, ending native forestry will have two certain outcomes:
– substantially increased cost to taxpayers of managing forests which produce no significant economic yield
– increased imports of timber (or substitution of higher carbon cost, non-renewable materials such as concrete and steel for timber)
Isn’t it time we too a long hard look at making the most of the most useful totally renewable, carbon-sequestering material we have access to? And plantations are only the answer if you like monoculture – the equivalent of cage trees – managed native forests are the free range, bio diverse alternative.
The IPCC agrees, by the way.
It’s a poor moral argument that says if we don’t send live animals overseas someone else will. And as for being religiously OK to kill animal slowly, one can only say that religion is sick.