Well the live ex news has done nothing last week but blacken yet another whistleblower....nothing new there...think Tony Hill, Lynn Simpson etc.

But really.....that this guy, a naval training officer (not someone that would be loading cattle, that he is alleged to have abused.. for a voyage to Malaysia!!) would be able to stage heat stress events on all decks on 5 voyages under the watchful eyes of Australian stockmen and vets beggars all belief.

Industry want us to believe that the footage was taken when the allegedly paid whistleblower turned off ventilation to stage a disaster. Hang on....the official government investigation report into high mortality Voyage 69 (the 8th heat stress disaster in 8 years) states the following (bolding from VALE):

"The AAV recorded moderate heat stress was evident in some areas from day 5 till day 13 of the voyage....
On day 14 the AAV reported sheep with severe heat stress in some areas of the vessel as the ship was underway to Qatar. The vessel arrived in Qatar late on day 14. On that night and the following night, the AAV reported that temperatures reached 36 degrees Celsius dry bulb and 35 degrees Celsius wet bulb with 94 per cent humidity. These extreme conditions lasted for approximately 5 to 6 hours each night. The AAV also noted that when these extreme conditions are encountered, large numbers of animals will to start to die. There were 880 recorded on day 15 and 517 mortalities recorded on day 16, all attributed to heat stress. The mortalities reached reportable level of 2 per cent on day 16 with 2.66 per cent cumulative total recorded on that day.
When high heat and humidity started to affect sheep, individual animals identified as heat affected or bogged were removed into alleyways and placed near ventilators [go figure ...they must have been working] and provided water....
The AAV recorded that ventilation was working, however it can only deliver the outside air conditions to the decks.

And the report goes on to detail the decks affected : 8/10 decks with mortality over 2%....oh yeah thats right, this super clever Pakistani must have disabled ventilation to 8/10 decks.....for 11 days.....without anyone noticing (and without any loss of power for lighting for his footage).

The lengths that this industry will go to,  to cast mud on the truth is nothing short of extraordinary.

Instead of worrying about footage of poor animal welfare being leaked by whistleblowers, our PM should be worried about the animal welfare that is the cause of this outrage.

Perhaps start with the other side of live export – outback cattle stations. Drought is no excuse. These animals should not be dying day after day. Drought management strategies exist in 21st century ... if animals are dying, they should have been shot. It's not as though they can walk far from the water. And they certainly can't walk far enough to get any last vestiges of the dry, useless 2017 grass, if any still exists.

And no, this is not Noonkanbah – and we have photos of more than one station. This is endemic. In good years, they get exported, in bad years, they die.

WARNING: the images below are confronting.

Well, the Al Messilah is in Freo Port and as we drove down Stirling Highway today, there was not one but 3 sparkling new red and white livestock trucks heading out from the port.

7 years of port watching and we've rarely seen a new truck. This morning 3/3 were as pretty as a picture, sparkling.

So....either a) the industry is putting on a massive PR effort (were there any VIPs visiting the ship today?????) or b) the livestock trucking industry is going great guns despite the drop off in live export (so much for all the support industries suffering?).

Unprecedented.... and no we didnt get pictures as we were too gobsmacked.