Victoria, July 10, 2006 – The Victorian Greens have called for an end to all live exports from Victorian ports, after labelling animal welfare standards to the Middle-East as "an embarrassment".

The call came as the Greens released its 2006 Victorian Animals Policy, the fifth policy release in the lead-up to the November state election.

But the VFF said it would lose out from the policy's proposed changes.

"It's no secret that animals are widely exploited for the benefit of humans," Greens Animals spokesman and candidate for the upper house seat of Western Victoria, Marcus Ward, said.

The Greens said exploitation was at its worst in the live export trade, which had faced numerous problems in recent months.

"Victoria is Australia's second biggest exporter of live cattle and sheep," Mr Ward said.

"We want Victoria to be looked on as the compassionate state when it comes to farming practices, especially in the export trade."

The Greens want to replace live export trade with carcase trades.

"By processing the animals here, more jobs will be created in regional farming areas of Victoria," Mr Ward said.

But VFF deputy president and Animal Welfare Committee chairman Meg Parkinson said this would not work with the markets Australia supplied to.

"They'll only take the animals if they're alive, so if we change to a carcase trade, they will start to import from Kuwait or Somalia," Ms Parkinson said.

VFF sees the Greens policy as an attempt to impose cultural imperialism on other countries.

"We're providing a service to the countries we supply to, as they need live exports because it complies with their religious beliefs," Ms Parkinson said.

The Greens policy further aims to phase out intensive farming systems with meat and egg production, by replacing these with free-range methods.

"We want Victoria's meat and egg trade to be at the same position as our dairy trade - state-of-the-art," Mr Ward said.

"Free range production will mean a phase out of battery chicken farming and intensive piggery farming."

The Greens believe that Australia's meat and egg industries are trading with the lower end of the spectrum and farmers should be aiming to produce better quality products like in Europe and the United States.

The government set up intensive farming systems in the late 1950s to feed Australia at a cheaper cost, and the VFF said changing this was not that simple.

"The Greens don't even like free-range farming either," Ms Parkinson said.

"Their real agenda is to get rid of farming all together."

Source: Country News