LIVE exports from Australia were grounded this week after footage of sheep dying on a boat from Fremantle to the Middle East in August last year were aired on commercial television on Sunday night.
The vessel at the centre of the controversial journey, Awassi Express that was chartered by Emanuel Exports, arrived at Fremantle Port on Sunday morning.
It was due to move 57,000 sheep and 250 cattle to the Middle East on Monday but the Federal government imposed a series of conditions that have delayed the departure – including reducing the number of sheep on board by 17.5 per cent and improving ventilation.
At the time of Farm Weekly going to print the vessel was being moved to another berth at Fremantle Port so its ventilation system could be independently assessed.
The footage on 60 Minutes was secretly filmed by Faisal Ullah on five separate sheep shipments from Australia last year.
Mr Ullah was a graduate of Pakistan’s Marine Academy and trainee navigation officer on board at the time.
The boat (in the 60 Minutes vision) had 63,804 sheep on the 23-day voyage with up to 2400 sheep perishing due to an extreme weather event – equalling 3.76 per cent – well above the acceptable level of 2pc for live exports.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) said it had taken immediate action to add an independent department veterinarian to the Awassi Express voyage to the Middle East when the journey does get underway.
The vet will monitor and record the health and welfare of all animals on board, send back daily reports and images and will also be able to issue directions on the vessel to ensure the welfare of the sheep.
In addition the department has added other specific conditions to ensure that the health and welfare outcomes required under law were met, including having an additional accredited stockman on top of the exporter’s normal practice of two accredited stockmen.
Improved ventilation equipment will be installed and the animal health and welfare, feed, water and bedding will be inspected and recorded four times each day, including by the independent department vet.
A daily report with images of conditions will be provided to the department.
The first port of discharge will be Kuwait when travelling to multiple ports in the Middle East, providing greater space for the remaining livestock as they head towards higher humidity ports.
The department said conditions would be designed to ensure the health and welfare of sheep on this voyage while longer-term measures are developed for the industry.
WA Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan launched her own investigation into the incident in February and alerted Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud who responded after the graphic footage emerged last week.
On Monday morning Ms MacTiernan was scathing of Emanuel Exports, as well as of the Federal government’s delayed response.
“I have been talking to WA farmers and warning them that there is a freight train coming down the road and that they really need to act,” Ms MacTiernan said.
“I can tell you that we are going really hard with our investigation – we really want to get an outcome here and to get this behaviour properly exposed.
“Those people that are in the live export industry, that are in the Federal government department say, ‘oh my God, we are so shocked that this is happening’.
“I’m not sure what they thought 2400 sheep dying of heat stress in a confined space was going to look like.
“It was always going to look like this and unfortunately there has been a culture of keeping their head in the sand and just allowing these appalling practices to continue.
“It has got to end here and our part as a State government is to make sure that our animal legislation is enforced.”
Ms MacTiernan said she started an investigation six weeks ago after being advised by the WA Solicitor General that the Animal Welfare Act 2002 applied to on board vessels and that WA’s legal obligations were not inconsistent with Federal laws regarding live export.
She said she had assembled a team of “experienced investigators and lawyers, who now will take this footage and really accelerate this investigation”.
“We want to make sure that this is properly dealt with, that those that have been responsible for perpetrating this cruelty on those animals are bought to accept the consequences of their conduct,” she said.
“We believe that there is prima facie evidence that there have been breaches of the Animal Welfare Act, and we are looking to see how we can take those charges forward.”
Ms MacTiernan said the penalties were, that a company could face fines up to $250,000, and for the individuals involved there was the possibility of imprisonment for up to five years.
“And you would have to say conduct of this nature seems to be at the top end of the scale,” she said.
Ms MacTiernan also slammed a report released by the Federal government less than two weeks ago that she said “basically white washed what happened on that vessel, which was an exact replica of what had happened the year before when they also had white washed it”.
“Quite clearly taking sheep from a southern summer, going into the heat of the Middle Eastern summer – the experience has been over and over again that these animals suffer immensely,” she said.
“So we had 3000 in 2016, over 2500 last year, yet until this footage came out, the Federal government was not prepared to do anything, so they have had their head in the sand.
“They haven’t been prepared to take on these hard cases and say ‘look, if this live export industry is to have any future we have got to lift our game’.
“There’s just been this papering over of the problem.”
Ms MacTiernan said there were a number of things that “have to happen as a matter of urgency”.
“We seriously have to consider banning sheep going into the Middle East in those high summer months,” she said.
“We should be looking at a two-three month ban because that is where we are seeing the most travesties.”
The minister said unless the vessels were adequately air-conditioned, the industry should look at cutting trade on those months.
“We’ve also got to ensure that we have independent vets,” Ms MacTiernan said.
“This practice of having user-friendly vets going onto these vessels supposedly doing the supervision clearly doesn’t work.
“What we need to do is have the Federal government department actually allocating the vet to the vessel and there not being any capability for the companies involved to pick and choose who they have.
“We have got to make sure that the vessels are modern vessels and we have to make sure that the vets are independent.”
Ms MacTiernan said she had been calling on the Federal government, for some time now, to phase out old vessels that were not up to modern standards.
“They set in new standards 10 years ago – that had a grandfathering clause that said any old vessel could continue – and not just for a limited time but forever.
“Now that clearly has to change, we have to bring that to an end and insist on all vessels having the modern standard.”
Ms MacTiernan said there also needed to be an acceptance that “if you don’t do this you are not a friend of the farmers, you are not being a friend of the livestock industry - you are being a friend only of those exporters”.
“The Federal government has to recognise either there has been gross failure in implementing the regulations or the regulations themselves are woefully inadequate,” she said.
“But there has to be consequences.”
Ms MacTiernan said she didn’t want to see a repeat of the 2011 live export ban, that could “generate some really difficult consequences for the industry”.
“You can’t just cut this off,” she said.
“You have got all these sheep in the system coming in, there’s a series of ships coming in this week, and if you just suddenly stop this industry, you’ve created this logistical nightmare.
“There isn’t the feedlots for these animals, so I think that we have to let that vessel (the Awassi Express) go, but we have to start being really serious about this and not just trying to paper over it.”
Ms MacTiernan said the State government would continue to look at how to encourage more onshore meat processing, to get more value out of livestock and create more jobs in WA abattoirs.
Emanuel Exports director Nicholas Daws responded to the journey footage, saying it was “simply devastating”.
“Emanuel Exports apologises to farmers and the broader community for these absolutely unacceptable outcomes,” Mr Daws said.
“Animal welfare failures resulting in high mortalities, like the footage we’ve seen from the August 2017 Awassi Express shipment in which 2400 sheep died, are heartbreaking for our company and the producers whose livestock we export.”
Mr Daws said since the shipment last year Emanuel Exports had been consulting closely with Australian Government accredited veterinarians and professionally accredited stockpersons who had worked on the Awassi Express and other livestock vessels servicing the Arabian Gulf, gaining their first-hand insights.
“Based on their suggestions, we’ve taken important practical steps above regulatory standards to prevent the extraordinary circumstances of August 2017 reoccurring in the future,” he said.
“This work has coincided with extensive consultation over the past seven months with the DAWR as the industry regulator – an important collaboration which has helped secure improved animal welfare outcomes over subsequent voyages.
“We know more needs to be done, which is why our company has instigated with DAWR substantial risk mitigation measures to be adopted for the forthcoming 2018 northern hemisphere summer.
“It is also why we’ve accepted the special conditions DAWR has placed on the Awassi Express shipment which is due to load at the Port of Fremantle this week.”
Mr Daws said the conditions included a 17.5 per cent reduction in loading volumes, reducing the consignment from 65,000 to 57,000, the presence of a Federal government observer on the voyage (in addition to an Australian Government accredited veterinarian, as required for all voyages to the Arabian Gulf).
“We have also agreed to employ extra accredited stockpersons for the shipment and to adjust the voyage schedule so that Kuwait will now be the first port of discharge, ahead of Qatar,” he said.
“The ship is due to unload approximately 24,000 sheep in Kuwait approximately 14 days after its departure from Fremantle, and will then discharge the remaining 33,000 sheep in Qatar approximately three days later.”
The delay in port has meant that another live export vessel, from a different company, has arrived in Fremantle carrying sheep from the Eastern States on its way to the Middle East.
This vessel will also be put under stricter controls.