Calls for minimum standards with more teeth around animal welfare in processing, and the resources to enforce them, have grown louder on the back of the release of Tasmanian footage from animal activists.
The calls are loudest from the processing sector itself, which has been pushing for more than a decade for the finalisation of an outcomes-based Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Livestock Processing.
The Australian Meat Industry Council says that would set a national and harmonised baseline for animal welfare across all jurisdictions.
With such a minimum standard still not available, the vast majority of industry has adopted the voluntary and independently-audited best practice Australian Livestock Processing Industry Animal Welfare Certification System, or AAWCS.
Producers are also weighing in, saying the laws are needed as a bare minimum to pick up small abattoirs who aren't part of that voluntary scheme or who aren't enforcing it's outcomes-based principles.
The footage from the Farm Transparency Project, captured at Tasmanian Quality Meats in Cressy in August and September, shows animals being slaughtered without being properly stunned and workers kicking, whipping, beating and throwing calves and sheep.
The Tasmanian Government reacted quickly, setting up a taskforce that includes industry groups to develop a minimum standard for processing in Tasmania and look at options like mandatory video surveillance.
TQM has the capacity to process 17000 animals per week and is Tasmania's only facility processing bobby calves, which means markets for those dairy animals would be extremely limited if it shut down.
The event has highlighted the fact that while there is a framework in place that goes well beyond what is required by law, and what is in place elsewhere around the world, it is voluntary.
More than 90 per cent of the beef kill in Australia is processed at AAWCS certified plants.
Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive officer Patrick Hutchinson said having every facility with the capability signed up with AAWCS was the first step but there was also the need to develop the mandatory minimum standard to give regulators the right tools to enforce animal welfare at non-AAWCS plants.
Southern NSW Hereford breeder Marc Greening agreed, saying when incidents like the Tasmanian case happened, "the entire industry gets tarred with the same brush."
"In the light of this, industry really needs to come together from a processor and producer level and push for all abattoirs to be adhering to the same set of high standards," he said.
Peak producer group Cattle Australia said it supported AAWCS and recommended to its members supplying abattoirs that were signatories to AAWCS.
"With the live export industry supply chain embracing the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock and the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System, Cattle Australia strongly believes that the Australian consumer and international customers should feel confident of our industry focus and attention on animal wellbeing," chair David Foote said.
Shan Goodwin
Shan Goodwin steers ACM’s national coverage of the beef industry. Shan has worked as a journalist for 30 years, the majority of that with agricultural publications. She spent many years as The Land’s North Coast reporter and has visited beef properties and stations throughout the country and overseas. She treats all breeds equally. Contact 0427686187. E: s.goodwin@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Shan Goodwin steers ACM’s national coverage of the beef industry. Shan has worked as a journalist for 30 years, the majority of that with agricultural publications. She spent many years as The Land’s North Coast reporter and has visited beef properties and stations throughout the country and overseas. She treats all breeds equally. Contact 0427686187. E: s.goodwin@austcommunitymedia.com.au
