Good evening ladies and Gentlemen, adjudicator, chairman and fellow debaters. Firstly I would like to rebut the flaws in the opposition’s arguments. Our team strongly believes that the Cormo express has been extremely exaggerated. In fact, feedback from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service-approved vet on board is that they were in excellent condition and have actually gained body weight since leaving Australia. I also wonder why the Affirmative failed to mention that out of 430 ships that left Australia [in 2003].
We didn’t hear anything about the other 429 and that in my elief is where the whole thing got distorted. Live animal exports are economically important to Australia and the world. Yet this does not mean that we forget the animal’s rights. Throughout this debate our team has stressed to you the need for animal exports and why we rely on it so much. Our first speaker Renee defined the topic and covered issues such as: *The excellent standards aboard transportation ships *Live exports eliminates animal substitution *And the expert care given to animals before they are loaded onto the ship and while they are on it.
Our second speaker Josh continued our case and argued equally important issues such as: *The financial gain *Cultural and industrial beliefs *Benefits of the live animal export industry As we informed you earlier live exports earn $1 billion simply in Australia. This figure means that live exports account for more than a ninth of the livestock sold in Australia each year. If we were to ban live exports in Australia this would jeopardise the lively hood of most of our farmers. As our second speaker Josh stated 20-30 % of a farmer’s income in
Victoria is from live exports, it is even greater interstate. It is obvious this would be the final blow to farmers after they had lost most of their livestock in the draught, now those surviving animals would not be able to be traded. Josh mentioned how most farmers only managed to keep going because they would be able to create income by exporting their livestock overseas. Another point that our team has been certain of is that there is no miss treatment of animals on board ships. Our first speaker Renee discussed procedure and actions taken if animals fall ill.
Renee stated I quote “If he death rate on board a transit vessel carrying sheep is above 2% a formal investigation is automatically conducted”. She also mentioned that each ship transporting live animals is required to have a vet on board. Their roles are to; check the animals’ health daily, draft the animals into pens, put down animals that aren’t coping, conduct post- mortems and ensure crew are tending to animals. As you can see every possible situation has been considered! It should be noted that our team respects the rights and beliefs of Muslim countries to process sheep in the way they believe is right.
Our team also has reminded the opposition that what happens to the sheep once they are delivered does not fall under our jurisdiction, although if there were fears that there was some such wrong doing, a formal inquiry would be launched. Since there is no precedential investigation we can assume that animals exported to the Middle East have been shown no cruelty. In conclusion to our argument, I must say that we rely on this industry greatly in Australia and would we be able to accept the backlash, loss of jobs and income if Live animal exports were band.