Doomsday scenario in Oz

Opinion

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This article was published 23/06/2011 (4690 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The sight of terrified cows whipped, beaten, executed and possibly even dismembered while still alive has sent Australia’s cattle industry into turmoil.

The scandal of the nation’s live cattle export trade was blown wide open on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. current affairs show Four Corners at the end of May.

The traditional warning on Australian television — “some viewers may find the following scenes offensive” — usually only serves to ignite a brief gust of curiosity in the bored viewer.

In this instance the cautionary note was vastly understated.

The sight of terrified, wild-eyed animals stumbling to their knees as they faced death in a bloodied house of carnage was too much for many viewers.

Some Indonesian abattoirs (and only, it should be stressed, a handful of abattoirs) are clearly treating cattle with an almost contemptuous cruelty as they kill them in the culturally appropriate (Halal) manner.

Tails are broken, tendons slashed, the eyes of some are gouged while many are whipped and kicked into their deaths.

As the horror has been replayed in news clips throughout the past few weeks to illustrate the unfolding story, many Australians have had to leave the room.

That there is an unpleasant interval between a grazing herd of gentle, brown-eyed bovines and a toothsome T-bone steak dinner can usually be effortlessly sublimated by the dedicated carnivore.

“They use stun guns,” is enough commentary on the fate of the hapless animal before its burnt flesh is cheerfully shovelled down the throat.

But the story has made many Australians re-assess what is still the slightly eccentric world of vegetarianism.

The images sparked such a deep emotional response that the federal government temporarily halted the $300 million live cattle trade.

In the days following the revelations, domestic beef consumption dropped between 10 and 15 per cent, even though Australian abattoirs are (reportedly, at least) well-regulated.

For thousands of Australian cattle producers, it’s not only a story on animal cruelty.

Many graziers in the country’s north who have fought a decade of drought received massive rainfalls last summer.

Just as cattle feed sprouts lavishly across grazing lands and prosperity beckons, the ban on live cattle exports now threatens to drag them back into debt and defeat.

Official commodity forecasts predict the ban on live cattle exports will slash trade by 38 per cent in the next year even if the federal government manages to get issues with Indonesian abattoirs resolved and live trade back on line in the next couple of months.

The economic effects are crippling, with road transporters, ports and stevedoring services, shipping companies’ vets and entire small towns in cattle country bracing for direct financial hits.

Meanwhile, it’s become clear other export markets are not big enough to take the massive number of cattle stranded in Australia by the ban.

Australian Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig was in Indonesia this week to discuss ways of re-opening trade, such as encouraging the stunning of animals before throats are slit.

While he was gone, hundreds of cattle families were converging on Canberra to let politicians know the financial pain they were feeling.

“Our stories need to be heard and our faces need to be seen, so today, here we are,” said Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association president Rohan Sullivan.

Independent MP Bob Katter says half a million cattle will flood the Australian market because of the ban, and Indonesia will start looking to Brazil for live exports if Australia refuses to deliver stock.

“It’s a doomsday scenario for the cattle industry,” said Katter, whose electorate in far North Queensland has hundreds of grazing properties.

Meanwhile, many vegetarians are seeing an opportunity to spread the word about an alternative diet that leaves the cow enjoying a comfortable old age, and relatively dignified death.

The Australian Capital Territory Vegetarian Society said the massive public outcry following the Four Corners show “eclipsed the backlash of almost any other political issue in Australian history.”

Vegetarians were also vocal on news websites, with several pondering whether the human animal should have evolved beyond devouring its fellow creatures.

One post suggested the real question that needed debate was this:

“Should we be killing and eating animals at all in the 21st century?”

Michael Madigan is the Australian correspondent for the Free Press.