TROUBLED livestock export vessel MV Jawan has departed Portland following two failed attempts to ship cattle from Victoria to the Middle East and Pakistan.
Port of Portland chief executive Greg Tremewen said the ship departed around 5pm on Wednesday evening, albeit without any cattle on board.
Those 4327 cattle had to be disembarked after the Australian Maritime Safety Authority deemed the ship could not sail with the cattle on board.
MV Jawan is a box ship convert and footage distributed online this week showed it seemingly rocking alarmingly from side to side.
Lobby group the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council this week issued a statement endorsing a full investigation into the circumstances of the incident.
ALEC CEO Brett Pointing said ALEC would support a review.
“If the exporter or any other party has done the wrong thing, they must be held to account,” Mr Pointing said.
“Exporters were shocked by the images showing the way the vessel was listing. As the authorities get to the bottom of this, we are 100% behind them because what we saw was unacceptable.”
Mr Pointing said such incidents were rare.
“As always, the wellbeing of the livestock is our highest priority and the way welfare has been successfully upheld in recent days is a credit to all the agencies involved,” he said.
