Chesters: MPs wising up to “keyboard warriors” on live exports

Ms Chesters spoke at the LIVEXchange conference today in Perth saying her electoral office email inbox was “bombarded” by “keyboard warriors” following reports of animal welfare issues in overseas markets.

But when a local incident involving a dozen dead sheep made front page of the local newspaper, the Bendigo Advertiser, in her Victorian electorate, it was met with silence in terms of email traffic and public outrage.

“My point is, MPs these days are starting to become a bit savvier with the way in which we engage with what comes into our inbox,” she said.

Ms Chesters is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations and Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional and Rural Australia and spoke on behalf of Labor Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, at the conference attended by about 400 industry delegates.

Ms Chesters said industry shouldn’t expect bipartisan support from Canberra when the actual policy wasn’t right.

Former Australian Ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby – who held the post from 2007 to 2011 - also spoke at the conference today about the opportunity for Australian exporters to access the booming market saying there was opportunity to sell meat products that met its expectations for food quality and safety.

Islamic law and halal slaughter - Professor Kirsten Stilt – from the Harvard University, Faculty Director, Animal Law and Policy Program spoke about the sensitive area of pre-slaughter stunning in live exports markets.

She said stunning was accepted by religious leaders, so long as the animal doesn't die from it pre-slaughter and she also said it was seen as a less painful alternative than pure slaughter.

Yesterday, keynote speaker David Lock the managing director of Mareterram Limited, said “profit is an unacceptable excuse for not meeting community standards on animal welfare standards”.

In his talk on understanding the changing protein dynamics of Asian markets form Indonesia to China, Consolidated Pastoral Company CEO Troy Setter said there was an opportunity to grow the pie, not fight over a slice of it, in terms of exporting  meat products from Australia.