The ESCAS report: what it doesnt say!

• world animal welfare standards is clearly the new sound-bite…..ESCAS requires compliance with OIE recommendations which are “lowest common denominator” guidelines achievable for developing and third world countries. They would be unacceptable under Australian domestic animal welfare law

• virtually all of the countries which import Australian animals have neither effective animal welfare laws, nor a culture which seeks to protect animals from cruelty. The idea that Australia can impose animal welfare requirements in these countries is unrealistic in the extreme and lets face it, if we had improved animal welfare by 30 years of live exporting (as we are told we have), ESCAS wouldnt have been necessary in the first place;
  

• there is no requirement anywhere in the live export supply chain for auditors or reviewers who are totally independent of the exporter.

• the Department of Agriculture promotes live export, and also purports to regulate it.  The major focus is clearly promotion and despite significant breaches of ESCAS the Dept has imposed no penalties on any exporter;

• adverse outcomes are by and large only identified by independent parties, mainly by a not for profit charity, Animals Australia. One would be justified in thinking that an even higher level of detection of bad outcomes would have been recorded had there been further independent monitoring