The West Australian-based Wellard Limited has lodged a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission based on an initial public offering. Investors have been offered 215 million Wellard shares, which represents 54 per cent of the company capital.
To those would-be investors, just remember Keniry.....the live export trade is uniquely and inherently risky. Even if ethics were not a concern, we wouldnt be putting our life savings into this one......
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Amazing. A fire burns for 9 days in a live export ship but in no time it is off to sea again. The Awassi Express loaded feed in Fremantle for 24h between 21st and 22nd October 2015. Presumably, it couldn't carry enough feed with the damaged silo (or wasnt allowed to) to do the long haul from Portland to wherever without this stop.
Guess the trip from Portland would have blown out a few toxic fumes and allowed a bit of a paint job before it got to Freo. Lets keep our fingers crossed that AMSA has assessed this ship and its potential fire risk correctly because as we know from the Farid Fares and Uniceb, if a ship burns out at sea, there is only one likely outcome…. It should come as no surprise that animal welfare is now regarded as unnecessary red tape in the live export industry.
Since “A Bloody Business”, the industry has frequently referred to needing a 'social licence' for live export ie a requirement that the public be assured that animal welfare standards are in place and being policed. ESCAS and all manner of other window-dressing exercises were deemed to be part of this self-defined and self-promoted licence. But….roll on… Barnaby Joyce and the farmers are firmly back in charge of animal ‘welfare’. There is obviously far too much “social licence” and as it might cost the farmer a dollar, it is now red tape. Unfortunately, progress in animal welfare has ceased and the pressure is for more on roll-backs of welfare provisions in all aspects of farming, not just live export. What the farmers want, the farmers get. Subsidies, special tax regimes, repeated drought assistance in hopelessly marginal areas, altered definitions of “free range” for egg production…you name it, you got it. Barnaby just can't get enough of the love. The Nationals have total say in this area of policy and no Liberal leader is ever going to be able change this even if he or she gave a damn which they usually don't. What is really depressing is that the media is so silent on this subject. No one it seems has the integrity, the analytical ability, the will or the courage to ever ask the right questions of Barnaby about any of the nonsense he spouts. Teys Australia will shut down its Biloela plant in central Queensland for seven weeks from the end of this month, rather the its normal four weeks, and JBS will shut down its Townsville plant early, from the end of November.
Apparently, it is all due to the Qld drought….but with record numbers of cattle being exported, could it be that our LE trade is at least partially responsible for this economic hardship for abattoir workers? Cant see any front page Australian heartache stories there as abattoir workers are not farmers so it really doesn't count! Fires on ships have dogged the LE trade: Farid Fares (40,605 sheep burnt;1980), Uniceb (67,488 sheep burnt; 1996), Maysora (73000 sheep unharmed; 2011) and Ocean Drover (in port no stock onboard; 2014) just to name a few. And they are just the fires that are known - not all are reported it seems.
And now another one to add to the list: Awassi Express (reportedly not loaded) in Portland. Only took 9 days with 50 or so firefighters on hand at a time to put it out in port. The difficulties listed included confined spaces, working at heights and the dangerous activities to empty the fuel out of the silo, which includes the production of both combustible gases and gases that would asphyxiate people working around it (not to mention stock if any had been on board). Hey...lucky it wasnt out at a sea with a few Aussie animals on board. As Keniry (2004) noted, "live export is is uniquely and inherently risky." Maritime footage of Holstein Express!
And....perhaps imagine a small loaded vessel, eg one of the "Express" vessels in this: http://gcaptain.com/incredible-footage-heavy-weather-tow-of-russian-aircraft-carrier-in-bay-of-biscay/#.VkPBNZGTnwI Oh yes, seas like this definitely occur in Great Australian Bight (see Voyage 52), Indian Ocean etc. LE aint no luxury cruise! A new study in the Aust Vet J by Moore SJ et al analysing sea voyages between 1995-2012 provides much useful data. However, amongst a few errors including noting that LE to Turkey only began in 2012 (despite High Mortality Voyage 39 to Turkey in 2011), it has one serious fundamental flaw…..excluding the outliers. It is reasonable to exclude outliers for statistical analysis but it is not reasonable to then ignore the outliers as a potential focus of enquiry eg as a separate data set.
The voyages of the Charolais Express 1998 (inadequate ventilation and heavy weather), Kalymnian Express 1999 (cyclone), Temburong 1999 (power loss and ventilation failure) and the MV Becrux 2002 (ventilation) were all disasters due to weather or ventilation and these are inherent risks of sea transport, thus should have been discussed as serious and legitimate risk factors. That high mortality voyages still occur due to these same factors eg bad weather in Voyages 45 (2013), 50 (2014) and 52 (2014) and ventilation issues in Report 44 (2013) indicate that ignoring this data set is poor science. Oh yes and for all those ships built after 2004 with improved design….shame we still have the Bader III (1978), Al Messilah (1980), Maysora (1989) and Al Shuwaikh (1986) as some of our most regular vessels. The study was funded by MLA/Livecorp. Too right it is Alison! Every time anyone other than an exporter looks on the ground (or in a car boot or a wheelbarrow), in the Middle East, in Oman, Kuwait etc…..Australian sheep are found out of supply chains. Time and time again, no matter what month of the year or what country. If ESCAS were working this simply wouldn't be possible.
The breaches occur over and over again, the offending exporters are identified over and over again….and nothing happens. There is no requirement for the Federal Government to do anything. Barnaby can say what he likes about how much interaction there is between the Dept of Ag and the offending exporters, but when the CEO of Wellard is exasperated enough to go public with the fact that Dept of Ag never does anything meaningful, then clearly, enough is enough. AA, RSPCA, VALE and any number of other organisations have called for strict penalties for non-compliance as long as this trade continues. Why should the offending companies get off scot free…..it makes a mockery of ESCAS, a mockery of live export's "care for Australian animals", a mockery of Australian commerce and a mockery of Australian animal welfare….and the animals continue to experience unabated suffering as they have done for over 30 years (never forget that this was the trade that strongly argued that ESCAS wasn't even necessary!!!) So, we have ESCAS breaches occurring over and over, to the point that Wellard wants someone (the importers, over which Australia has no control) penalised - but still the government does not act. ESCAS was set up to prevent breaches. Consistent and recurrent breaches occur over and over again - always in evidence when Animals Australia just happens to turn up - so presumably when they are not there either, i.e. all the time. And the Australian Government does nothing, again and again. This is big business. Exporters make a truckload of money, and like any other business that makes truckloads of money, they should be forced to follow the rules and be penalised when those rules are breached. Take away their licences, or start fining them so much that it becomes a commercial imperative to toe the line. Simple.
These images show cattle on board a live export ship in Eilat, Israel, and after loading onto trucks for onward journeys. The temperatures of 42.5 on the dockside is very high but completely normal for that time and place. The reading of 56.5 (allegedly in the hold) is extreme by anyone's measure. The images show some (what appear to be Bos taurus) cattle with long winter coats liberally coated with faeces – all risk factors for occurrence of heat stress and poor welfare. The subsequent rollover and death of cattle on the truck just makes things even worse. Long-haul voyages to the Middle East should not occur at any time, but taking winter-adapted cattle into those conditions is appalling. See the photos (link to a dropbox folder) Read our response to Port Adelaide Monitors, who provided the photos: ![]()
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