First off let me say this. I was not paid any money or commissioned in any way, shape or form to write my article that appeared in Beef Central. I was paid the same wage as the other Australian stockmen aboard the boat representative of my previous experience as an outback stockman. I approached Wellard Rural Exports myself so I could see first hand what happened on a live export vessel.
Like I mentioned in my article I had been told terrible things happened aboard live export vessels by a high ranking member of Animals Australia.
My experience showed that person had no idea about the conditions aboard live export boats, perhaps because she had never done a journey on one in her life.
I will leave the practice of paying bribes for stories up to the people on the other side of the argument. I can prove I wasn't paid but I would like to ask the animal justice fund how much this guy got paid. Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money to buy the testimony of a disgruntled employee from a live export company or abattoir and I will leave it up to the reader to decide if such payments could actually encourage animal cruelty to be committed or exaggerated in pursuit of such a lucrative prize.
My article is frank and factual and it really is a shame animal rights activists see their cause as noble enough to make the truth irrelevant.
Check out the live export moralities claimed by WSPA on the right hand side of this page (40,000) and compare them to the figure under fact number 2 here. (28,000!)
The actual figures are available on the D.A.F.F website and of course the WSPA is lying through their back teeth about how many animals died on live export vessels last year.
In fact I could spot several errors of fact on the WSPA page, the biggest porky pie being the ease with which we can replace live export with boxed meat exports. These reports are flawed with the laughable assumption that the rest of the world will pay current prices for boxed meat if we stop live exports.
Recent experience with Indonesia proves otherwise. Since the live export ban last year Indonesia has slashed boxed beef imports along with reduced live export quotas. They are now sourcing illegally killed beef from India to make up the shortfall.
This means that instead of cattle being exported from Australia and killed in supply chain accredited abattoirs to OIE standards they are being hacked up by lawless backyard butchers in the back blocks of India and sold by criminals into our market.
The footage shown on Four Corners 'A Bloody Business' story was sickening and horrific. Thanks to the work of Lyn White, the exaggerations of the WSPA and the arrogance and ineptitude of Joe Ludwig those scenes no longer play out in four small abattoirs in Indonesia they play out every night in every backyard abattoir in India to every animal that takes the place of an ethically killed Australian animal.
It is a cold and uncomfortable fact that when we allow animal rights activists to interfere with industries they know nothing about the biggest losers are the animals.
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