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November 5th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Ludwig defends live exports after sheep cull footage
Updated 2 hours 8 minutes ago
Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig has defended regulation of the live export trade, saying the slaughter of thousands of Australian sheep in Pakistan is a distressing but isolated incident.
A shipload of 21,000 Australian sheep was sent to the Pakistani port city of Karachi after being refused permission to be landed in Bahrain because of disease concerns.
On September 16, Pakistan’s government ordered the local authorities in Karachi to destroy the sheep.
A Four Corners investigation, aired on Monday night, obtained graphic footage of the slaughter.
The footage shows the cull, including a man sawing at a sheep’s neck before throwing it into a bloody pit.
Other sheep are bulldozed into the pit after being killed, but some are seen the next morning still breathing amongst the dead.
Watch the Four Corners report (Warning: Footage may be distressing)
Senator Ludwig says the Department of Agriculture is already examining footage as part of its investigation.
If you look at it in context, the vast majority of animals that leave this country, the exporters do regulate the industry, they do have control of the animals and they do enter markets.
Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig
He says the Government regulates the live export trade, but it is a commercial industry and it is the responsibility of Australian exporters to ensure supply chain assurances are followed.
“I think if you look at the Pakistan circumstances … it was certainly appalling, no-one would have expected that. It was unprecedented,” he told Four Corners.
“It is a matter that the Department, as the regulator, will now investigate separately, and certainly I’m looking forward to seeing that report as to what happened and then how we can certainly avoid it.”
Australia’s live export industry was given strict new rules after the Indonesian live cattle export trade was suspended, and then re-opened, in the wake of another Four Corners report.
Under the new rules, Australian sheep and cattle have to go through approved supply chains which meet international welfare standards.
‘An appalling circumstance’
Senator Ludwig says there were always going to be mistakes made in the live export industry even with government regulation.
“What I’ve always said, right at the start of this is that there would always be circumstances, there would be mistakes, there would be slips, and this instance there was also an appalling circumstance that occurred,” he said.
“But if you look at it in context, the vast majority of animals that leave this country, the exporters do regulate the industry, they do have control of the animals and they do enter markets.
“Since I’ve put in place the supply chain there’s about 1.5 million animals that do go into appropriate markets, that animal welfare is looked after.”
The live trade industry pre-empted Four Corners’s report by releasing a video statement on YouTube, including its own vision of the sheep being killed.
The video features Steven Meerwald, from Wellard, the company responsible for the shipment, condemning the treatment of the sheep by authorities in Pakistan.
The shipment of sheep was never supposed to go to Pakistan. They only ended up there after authorities in Bahrain rejected the shipment, claiming the animals were infected with scabby mouth.
Despite a legal challenge, and high level government, diplomatic, scientific and industry representation, the cull still took place.
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