RSPCA Australia has criticised the federal government’s moves to cut red tape restrictions and reduce costs on live animal exports.
Earlier this month, Federal Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce announced the new on-shore regulatory arrangements would save $1.2 million.
But he said the reduced regulatory burden would also allow exporters and government to focus attention and resources on the trade’s highest risk areas, while ensuring high animal welfare standards were also maintained through the supply chain.
The move was welcomed by the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council CEO Alison Penfold who said it brought live exports into line with existing domestic export approval arrangements for all other export industries regulated by Mr Joyce’s Department.
“Not meeting an Approved Arrangement will have consequences for exporters and so there is very strong incentive to make this system work,” she said.
But RSPCA policy officer Jed Goodfellow said his group had “serious concerns” about the government’s latest plans to reduce regulatory oversight of the live animal export trade.
Mr Goodfellow said it was all part of Mr Joyce’s “aggressive agenda” to expand the trade, thereby increasing the risks to animals, while at the same time reducing regulatory oversight.
“It’s a recipe for further animal welfare disasters,” he said.
“The Approved Arrangements system has been promoted on the basis that it simply involves the reallocation of resources to areas of high risk.
“We would like to see evidence of this and an assurance from the government that these changes will not lead to a reduction in on-the-ground departmental inspection.”
Mr Goodfellow referred to the recent, first air-shipment of 150 live slaughter-ready cattle into China as an example of why “strong and vigilant” Departmental oversight of the trade needed to be maintained, given several crate-loads of cattle did not have sufficient head-clearance which was “a potentially fatal housing issue” for the exported cattle.
He said the government’s bureaucratic changes did not impact the livestock Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) “in a technical legal sense”.
But pre-disembarkation preparation, loading and inspection were “vital stages of the export process for ensuring animals are adequately prepared and fit for the intended journey”, he said.
Mr Goodfellow said streamlining verification processes for what was still a very high risk trade was “irresponsible and evidences yet again this government’s agenda of placing profits above animal welfare”.
“This is further exemplified by the government’s failure to implement the revised Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock, which underpin the proposed Approved Arrangement system,” he said.
“The current ASEL are outdated and not based on the latest animal welfare science.
“A review of the ASEL was recommended as a priority by the 2011 Farmer Review (but) despite the production of a revised version of the ASEL in 2013, the Australian government is yet to act on the proposed changes.”
But Mr Joyce said the government had made an election commitment to reform the livestock export certification process by introducing approved arrangements to save industry $1.2 million in “wasted time and effort”.
He said the approved arrangements only applied to on-shore activities conducted within Australia where existing animal welfare was strong and didn’t change existing ESCAS requirements in any way.
"These arrangements will help ensure the system focuses resources on areas of highest risk and encourage continual improvement by rewarding compliant exporter performance,” he said.
“Under approved arrangements, instead of continually approving mountains of documents the Department will be able to focus on exporters' business systems, identifying areas of risk and ensuring exporters address any deficiencies before they escalate.
“This initiative complements recent live export reforms, including new audit requirements for ESCAS introduced in April this year that allow stronger scrutiny for poor performers and high-risk markets.”
In June last year, live animal exporters retaliated strongly against the government’s introduction of legislation that imposed an increase of up to 66 per cent on live animal export document processing, inspection, certification and registration fees and charges.