Exporter details kangaroo swindle

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 6

Exporter details kangaroo swindle

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney

A Melbourne meat exporter has told of how he bought up to three tonnes of horse and kangaroo meat a day from pet food outlets to sell for human consumption in Australia and overseas. Richard Vincent Hammond, aged 35, charged with 71 offences concerning the export of prohibited meat, told a Royal Commission on the Australian meat industry that pet food made up about half his exports to the United States between October 1980 and August last year.

Mr Hammond, who told the commission yesterday that he was prepared to plead guilty to 51 of the offences, said he had bought the kangaroo and horse meat from a pet food supplier, saying it was for dog food. He said he had conducted a legitimate business for the first six to eight weeks of his

operations but started to introduce pet meat when things became difficult. “Things were so hard I suppose you think a bit deeper when you are not making any money,” he said. Initially he had just bought horse meat but after a month started buying kangaroo meat as well because he was "impressed by the look of it.”

About 20 per cent of the meat was dyed to mark it was unfit for human consumption but he cut the dye out when substituting the meat for beef.

Mr Hammond said he first tried to conceal the consignments of pet foods by forging meat transfer certificates for meat taken from his boning room at Protean Holdings in the suburb of Richmond.

This was discovered by the Department of Primary Industry but no action was taken.

He then changed his method to secretly loading the pet food at Protean and asking for a certificate from a meat inspector who had not checked the load. Mr Hammond said he sent about 40 containers of meat to the United States in his time at Protean and half of that was substituted pet food.