Second animal activist group ‘paying for pain’
A second animal activist group was involved in offering payments to live export workers to film cruelty telling one worker they would only pay for photos that put the industry in “a bad light”.
NSW
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A second animal activist group was involved in offering payments to live export workers to film cruelty telling one worker they would only pay for photos that put the industry in “a bad light”.
It comes as the Department of Agriculture has launched an official investigation after The Daily Telegraph exposed how activist group Animals Australia had sent emails to live export workers offering them payments equivalent of three months wages to help them obtain footage which showed sheep suffering.
New emails obtained by The Daily Telegraph can reveal that a Stop Live Exports employee also offered export workers payments for footage.
In one email sent on 27 February 2018 to a whistleblower the employee wrote: “I can make a $100 donation now as a sign of good faith, and to cover 10 of the images we feel are useful, of the one video and 12 photos you have sent us to date”.
The next day she sent an email confirming the payment, writing “Payment made $8,142 PKR/$100 AUD) and confirmation email sent to this address”.
In an earlier email sent on on December 10, 2017 the activist said they would only pay for images that showed the industry in a bad light, writing: “The payment per image depends of course on the quality and the amount. We might pay $50 for one good image, but up to a limit on the number of images (i.e. we would not purchase 100 images at that rate),” she said
“I guess how it would work, would be if your cousin got a good quality shot of animals in a situation that he thought shone a bad light on the industry and proved that conditions on board the ships are NOT what industry would have us believe, you could supply us with that image, and we would decide whether to pay for it”.
At the time the employee thought she was writing to the cousin of a live export worker who would help them obtain images from inside vessels. In later emails it is revealed that the cousin is a fake identity and that the Stop Live Exports employee was talking directly with the live export worker.
The whistleblower had worked on the Awassi- the vessel that was at the centre of a 60 minutes expose on the Live Export industry.
When contacted by The Daily Telegraph the Stop Live Exports employee denied ever making payments, however when sent evidence of the emails she stopped responding to phone calls.
Stop Live Exports is based in Fremantle, WA.
Animals Australia chief executive Gladys Oogjes said the group had never encouraged or abetted any cruelty to animals.
“The primary ethical concern in the live export trade is the systemic suffering of animals that the industry has profited from for decades,” Ms Oogjes said.
“The routine suffering from heat stress depicted in the footage speaks for itself and has been confirmed and accepted by the industry, the government regulator, two extensive government reviews and thousands of daily voyage reports supplied to the government regulator over years.”
An Agriculture spokesman confirmed it was investigating the alleged payments.
“The department is assessing the allegations and determining the appropriate course of action,” he said.
“Where appropriate, the Department may take regulatory action or conduct a criminal investigation where breaches of statutory requirements are found or suspected to have occurred,” he said.