Greens MP and animal welfare spokesperson Cate Faehrmann says that measures announced today for NSW abattoirs by Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson are inadequate and will not be enough to end animal cruelty.
In February 2012 undercover footage obtained at the Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors gave the public an insight into the horrific cruelty allowed to occur behind closed doors in some NSW abattoirs. Animal welfare groups and the Greens immediately called for CCTV to be installed in all NSW abattoirs. The Greens are preparing legislation to make it a mandatory requirement.
“Why isn’t the Minister prepared to open up abattoirs to tough independent scrutiny?” asked Ms Faehrmann.
“Without mandatory CCTV to record the handling of animals and slaughter at all times, and available for inspection by the authorities at any time, the public cannot be reassured that cruelty is not taking place.
“The Minister has announced that each abattoir has to appoint a trained Animal Welfare Officer to be on the premises while processing is occurring. This person will be employed by the abattoir. The Greens believe independent oversight is needed and at all times when animals are being handled not just ‘processing’.
“Mandatory CCTV is an efficient way to provide independent oversight and to give the public confidence that cruelty will be policed properly.
“A requirement to comply with the mandatory adoption of the Industry Animal Welfare Standards for Livestock Processing and improved training are positive steps but mandatory CCTV is necessary to ensure the standards are complied with,” said Ms Faehrmann.
The footage shows sheep skinned alive, pigs beaten while fully concious and cattle jabbed repeatedly with electric prods. The NSW Greens consider $5200 a pathetic fine for such extreme breaches of the licence conditions. The abattoir should have had its licence revoked permanently and far greater penalties should apply.
May 17th, 2012 at 10:52 pm
These kind of torture centres should be closed at once!
May 17th, 2012 at 10:53 pm
That is bloody disgusting. I’m horrified but sadly not surprised
May 17th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
I could not agree more. This stuff is horrific. Literally horrific and evil. If this EVER happened to humans it WOULD be shut down. They need constant monitoring as it’s proven time and time again what happens inside the slaughterhouses. It is never a one off.
May 18th, 2012 at 7:16 am
My only question is, who gave anybody the power and the right to abuse, torture and kill God’s creatures.So far no God has come to me telling me is okay, so no man will ever be able to convince me that all these killing is not a mass murder. People can bully their way in this planet to fulfill their sickening greed and thirst for money and power, but at the end we all will die and will have to answer to a higher Power, where corrupted and ridiculous man made laws will have no value what so ever.
May 18th, 2012 at 8:27 am
The result of this expose is nothing, zilch, zero! How can anyone believe that having a welfare officer, a paid employee, will help the animals in any way? How can the authorities expect that person to speak out against their employer, their work colleagues? It is mind boggling that they came up with this as a solution to the horrendous abuse these animals went through as depicted in the footage.
Shame on the Primary Industries Minister!
May 18th, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Hawkesbury Valley Abattoirs have installed CCTV cameras shortly after the incident earlier this year. Open access of the footage on the new CCTV cameras has been given to all regulation authorities. Katrina Hodgkinson, NSW Minister for Primary Industries & Emma Hurst Animal Liberation are both well aware that Hawkesbury Valley Abattoirs have installed the cameras.
Why is this company still being persecuted? They have seriously taken any previous incident at their facility on board, they have never tried to side step the issues raised, to the contra, they have addresses them! They have clearly taken steps in the responsibility of ensuring no staff member at their facility will ever behave in that manner again.
This company actually agrees with the benefits of the installation of CCTV Cameras, and has clearly become a leader in its own industry without Government mandate to do so and no-one seems to want to recognise the efforts that they have made to not only improve conditions at their own facility but within the industry.
The pigs in the footage were actually dead, illegal hidden cameras were planted; the footage set up and Animal Liberations aired footage was manipulated and doctored. Even given this, the issues raised were still recognized and acted on responsibly by this company. Credit where credit is due! Animal Liberation issue and The Greens issue is CCTV Cameras in all Australian abattoirs! This company has done this! But still persecuted!
May 20th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
CCTV is a total must for all slaughterhouses, but it is certainly far from the ideal. There can never be any such thing as humane slaughter/murder!