Cando - Australia's Voice's Posts

Australia's live export industry and the many businesses dependent on it are still suffering from the severe blow inflicted on them by the Gillard government in June 2011. Some fear it may yet prove fatal. A year ago the ABC’s Four Corners screened a story showing appalling cruelty to a small number of Australian cattle sent to Indonesian abattoirs. The Gillard government took just six days to respond with a six months total ban on the live export trade with Indonesia. The minister did not go to Indonesia. Nor did Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Prime Minister Gillard did not even pick up the phone to speak to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono . The government ignored advice from the department not to do this. They warned that farmers would be overstocked and would have inadequate feed. Animals could starve and the industry damaged. Acting against this advice the Minister, Joe Ludwig, clearly panicked. This has been ruinous for the industry. The Indonesian government has clearly h