Princess Alia bint al-Hussein of Jordan wants Australia to make the stunning of animals mandatory before they are slaughtered. Princess Alia, sister of King Abdullah II of Jordan, has been in talks with Australia's agriculture department to stop the slaughter of conscious animals for halal meat. Paul Morris, the department's acting deputy secretary for live animal exports says, “there has been quite a bit of communication with Princess Alia over a number of years around these matters.” “From my own experience in talking to Princess Alia and in communications with her she has been a very good advocate for animal welfare and particularly for stunning in Jordan and also more broadly in the Middle East,” he told the ongoing hearing with the Rural Affairs and Transport committee. Morris clarified that kosher meat from Australia from un-stunned slaughtered animals was currently exported to Israel, while some animals processed for export to the Middle East had been stunned before slaughter and some not. “For cattle we do allow for ritual slaughter purposes, for stunning to occur after the cut has been done, so it's a post-cut stunning,.” he said. “We do allow un-stunned slaughter of sheep in Australia.” In 2010 more than 2.9 million sheep were exported, 70% of which went to Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, and a smaller share to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. In previous correspondence Princess Alia has written to Labor MPs requesting that stunning be mandated and be imposed as a condition of sale. Princess Alia explains that stunning fits with Islamic teaching to prevent cruelty to animals. She adds that pre-slaughter stunning is used by both of Jordan's government abattoirs for cattle and sheep. Islamic authorities have deemed pre-slaughter stunning acceptable in Jordan paving the way for other Islamic nations to accept any move by Australia to mandate stunning. BM
