8 weeks prior to this investigation, Animals Australia warned Barnaby Joyce his live export laws were being broken in Kuwait. Hundreds of Aussie sheep were facing brutal slaughter. As the Festival of Sacrifice loomed, and with no intervention by the government, those hundreds turned to thousands. And not only in Kuwait. Our investigators tracked Australian animals across the Middle East. Laws are being broken everywhere we turn. Yet no export company is being charged.
8 weeks prior to this investigation, Animals Australia warned Barnaby Joyce his live export laws were being broken in Kuwait. Hundreds of Aussie sheep were facing brutal slaughter. As the Festival of Sacrifice loomed, and with no intervention by the government, those hundreds turned to thousands. And not only in Kuwait. Our investigators tracked Australian animals across the Middle East. Laws are being broken everywhere we turn. Yet no export company is being charged.
The Festival of Sacrifice means big money to the live export industry. But for animals, it can mean chaos and cruelty.
Every year Aussie animals are sent into this frenzy of buying and killing. Live export laws are supposed to protect them from the worst abuses but some export companies are consistently breaking these laws, without consequence.
In 2015, across the Middle East, terrified sheep were dragged through the streets and stuffed in car boots in suffocating 48°C heat. Their suffering only ended when their throats were cut while fully conscious — either at private homes or in filthy makeshift ‘slaughter rooms’.
This carnage was not only brutal, it was avoidable. The Australian Government knew exporters were breaking export laws in Kuwait yet in recent weeks allowed them to send thousands more sheep into the region.
If the Australian Government was doing its job properly — and ensuring that the Department of Agriculture was doing its job properly — then export licences should have been cancelled and exporters could now be facing jail time. But the law-breaking continues. Animals keep suffering. And exporters are getting off scot-free.
It’s time to prosecute the offenders.
The Festival of Sacrifice means big money to the live export industry. But for animals, it can mean chaos and cruelty.
Every year Aussie animals are sent into this frenzy of buying and killing. Live export laws are supposed to protect them from the worst abuses but some export companies are consistently breaking these laws, without consequence.
In 2015, across the Middle East, terrified sheep were dragged through the streets and stuffed in car boots in suffocating 48°C heat. Their suffering only ended when their throats were cut while fully conscious — either at private homes or in filthy makeshift ‘slaughter rooms’.
This carnage was not only brutal, it was avoidable. The Australian Government knew exporters were breaking export laws in Kuwait yet in recent weeks allowed them to send thousands more sheep into the region.
If the Australian Government was doing its job properly — and ensuring that the Department of Agriculture was doing its job properly — then export licences should have been cancelled and exporters could now be facing jail time. But the law-breaking continues. Animals keep suffering. And exporters are getting off scot-free.
It’s time to prosecute the offenders.