Let the animals suffer, they are only a trade commodity

With yet more footage of the failure that is ESCAS and the failure of the live export trade to protect the welfare of Australian animals, Mr Joyce, Minister for Agriculture, urged against an overreaction that could harm Australia's livestock industry.

"No matter how much we try we are still going to have banks being robbed by bank robbers, but we can't shut down the banking system," Mr Joyce told the ABC's News Breakfast today. Too true, but in this case “the bank” itself is the problem and the bank is culpable...perhaps akin to the bankers inviting the robbers in! One could argue that if they had a better "bank manager" it wouldn't happen.

Joyce says "let's manage it not close it down". OK, so lets manage it! Place independent veterinarians on the ships, allow transparent reporting and monitoring, have government officials overseas monitoring on the ground and apply sanctions to the exporters when the breaches occur (or why have any laws there in the first place?). There is no doubt we could manage it much better….if there were any will to do so.