The shadow agriculture minister has slammed the RSPCA, claiming in a recent meeting they were unconcerned about his argument that animal welfare standards would be worse for sheep entering the Middle East after an Australian ban is implemented.
National Party leader David Littleproud told Flow on Wednesday:
"I met with the RSPCA yesterday and I've got to say how disappointed I am in them. They want to shut (Australian live exports) down because they believe that animal welfare standards will improve. But when I put to them that the countries that will take this over, like Sudan and Ethiopia, that actually don't measure the pants per minute of a sheep on a boat, that don't know the airflow through the boat on its transit, doesn't weigh the sheep before so they know how heavy it is ... they don't count the number of sheep, they just put as many as they can on that boat and get paid for whatever's left at the end. The abbatoirs in these Middle Eastern countries will move away from our ESCAS standards to ensure there are humane slaughtering of these animals.
"I said to them also, you're prepared to support shutting down an industry here so that sheep in Sudan and Ethiopia will have perverse animal welfare outcomes - and they said they would! Now where is the moral compass of the RSPCA or the Labor Party?"
Hear the full interview with shadow agriculture minister David Littleproud, talking first about the topic of vaping, on the Flow podcast player below:
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