Government response to their own advisors a FARCE

The Australian Government yesterday announced that it intends to ban live export of sheep to the ME between June and August (oh, well done – the industry already had a self-imposed ban) but they would continue with decreased stocking density and independent observers.

In this totally farcical move, the Australian Government has ignored the recommendations of the McCarthy Review and all but one (the recommendation to monitor data!) of the recommendations of the Draft Report of their own Technical Representative Panel on Heat Stress Risk Assessment. In addition, they have carefully ignored all the heat stress reports by those independent observers from 2018, probably in line with their careful sanitisation of the Independent Observer summaries which effectively removed any mention of heat stress e.g. for the May voyages. (See http://www.vale.org.au/independent-observer-reports.html)

What an extraordinary waste of time and money to achieve nothing at all. Keep holding out, Independent Observer 7, whoever you are (http://www.vale.org.au/independent-observer-reports.html). Don't let them sanitise your report with 0.98% mortality for one sheep consignment, discrepant sheep numbers, sheep being left without food and water etc.)