FED:Thousands rally ahead of animal bill vote

AAP General News (Australia)
08-14-2011
FED:Thousands rally ahead of animal bill vote

By Melissa Jenkins

MELBOURNE, Aug 14 AAP - Several thousand people have rallied in Melbourne, urging federal
MPs to vote with their consciences this week on live animal exports.

Live exports resumed earlier this month after a temporary ban following a public outcry
sparked by footage of abuse at an Indonesian abattoir aired by the ABC Television's Four
Corners.

There are two bills opposing live animal exports expected to be voted on in the lower
house of federal parliament on Thursday.

There were rallies across Australia on Sunday calling for a permanent ban on live exports.

Some people at the event on the steps of the Victorian parliament wept as Animals Australia
investigator Lyn White recalled some of the cruelty she had witnessed at slaughterhouses
in Indonesia and the Middle East.

"I have stood in front of workers in a Dubai marketplace to stop them from throwing
Australian sheep three metres through the air like bags of wheat," she told the crowd.

"I have stood in Indonesian slaughterhouses for six consecutive nights witnessing a
level of brutality to animals that I hoped I would never see from our fellow human beings.

"This is not about animal rights, this is about ending human wrongs."

Ms White said the Gillard government could be celebrated as the one that ended the
live animal export trade.

Quoting former British politician William Wilberforce, who was a leader of the movement
to abolish the slave trade, she said: "You may choose to look away, but you can never
again say that you did not know."

Mr Bandt, who introduced one of the bills, said meat processed in Australia delivers
a 20 per cent better return to the economy than animals slaughtered offshore.

He urged Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to allow their
MPs a conscience vote on the issue.

"Members ... from all sides of parliament should vote with their heart and with their
head," Mr Bandt said.

"It's what the Australian people want.

"They should be standing up for jobs in Australia and they should be standing up for
what morally what is the right thing to do and that is to kill animals in a humane way."

Kaye Baillie, 48, travelled from Echuca on the banks of the Murray River to attend
the Melbourne protest.

"How could I not support banning the live export trade? It is just too terrible," she told AAP.

"If you are going to eat them (animals), couldn't you at least give them a decent life
and a painless death.

"It's really such a simple equation."

Mr Bandt's bill includes an immediate ban, while a separate bill introduced by independent
Andrew Wilkie allows for a three-year phase out.

Neither bill is likely to pass the lower house as the federal government and the opposition
want the live export trade to continue.

AAP mj/gfr/jfm

KEYWORD: CATTLE VIC

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