The SA Minister for Agriculture, Michael O'Brien proposed to a national meeting of agriculture ministers that all animals must be stunned before slaughter in Australia (The Advertiser, July 15). Well done Minister! Currently exemptions are granted on religious grounds for kosher or halal slaughter.

Unfortunately other Ministers were not as concerned about animal welfare as Minister O'Brien: "It is understood NSW, Victoria and WA expressed reservations about the SA proposal. There is intense lobbying in the eastern states, especially from the Jewish community, to ensure kosher slaughter of animals, where their throats are cut and they are left to bleed to death, be allowed to continue."

There are 15 slaughterhouses licenced to kill animals without stunning, 9 of them in SA. Queensland does not allow ritual slaughter, neither does New Zealand. In New Zealand about the half the lamb is accredited as halal and the lambs are stunned before being killed. In Australia, the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS) has standards for exported halal meat, which include pre-slaughter stunning. The Netherlands recently passed a law to make pre-slaughter stunning mandatory. The Australian states are dragging their feet on protecting animals from the pain and distress of having their throats cut while fully conscious. A decision on Minister O'Brien's proposal has been deferred until October.

The laws covering the slaughter of animals in SA are contradictory. On the one hand, section 13 (3g) of the Animal Welfare Act 1985 states that a person commits an offence when s/he “kills the animal in a manner that causes the animal unnecessary pain”. Cutting the throat without pre-stunning is definitely causing unnecessary pain because the animal could be rendered unconscious first.

On the other hand, under the SA Primary Produce (Food Safety Schemes) Act 2004, Primary Produce (Food Safety Schemes) (Meat Industry) Regulations 2006 and the incorporated standard, Australian Standard for the Hygienic Production and Transportation of Meat and Meat Products for Human Consumption, section 7.12 (1) allows for “animals killed under an approved arrangement that provides for their ritual slaughter involving sticking without prior stunning.”

Clearly there is a contradiction between the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act and the religious exemption granted under the Primary Produce (Food Safety Schemes) Act. In addition, there is  the Meat Standards Committee Guideline: Ritual slaughter for ovine and bovine, which is a guideline rather than a law. According to the Guideline, cattle must be restrained in an upright position and stunned immediately after sticking, whereas in the case of sheep there are no requirements as to type of restraint and they can be allowed to bleed to death. The Guideline is unsatisfactory from an animal welfare perspective.

For detailed information on ritual slaughter, including references, go to Ritual Slaughter