Distressing new footage of illegal animal abuses in Tasmanian slaughterhouses continues to be released. Today the Greens wrote again to Minister Palmer, urging her to immediately announce a genuine investigation into all slaughterhouses, including the seizure and independent review of all available CCTV footage from each facility.
Animal activists from the Farm Transparency Project installed cameras in a quarter of Tasmania’s slaughterhouses, and every single one of them has shown serious and systemic cruel practices occurring. We are deeply concerned at the high likelihood of a culture of cruel practices across all the state’s slaughterhouses.
How can the community have any confidence that Tasmania’s other slaughterhouses are adhering to the required standards and practices, unless this has been independently verified?
The Greens do not believe the Minister’s animal welfare taskforce is needed, because activist groups have called for years for the government to do its job and mandate CCTV cameras in all abatoirs. Minister Palmer’s ‘taskforce’ can have no credibility if, at bare minimum, its work does not include as assessment of footage that shows what’s happening right across the industry now. This cannot occur without a review of all available footage from every single Tasmanian slaughterhouse.
If Tasmanian slaughterhouses have been operating in line with animal welfare laws, we expect the companies – and the Minister – would welcome the opportunity to demonstrate this to the community. The only reason the Minister would deny such a common-sense step would be to protect the meat industry from being exposed for even more widespread systemic animal cruelty abuses.
