Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The pictures of mistreatment and cruel abuse of Australian cattle in Indonesia shocked us all. The humane slaughter of cattle and other livestock to feed humanity is something that we know about and expect in this country. Australian farmers take immense pride in breeding and raising healthy and well-cared for animals, in line with the highest animal welfare standards in the world. So the footage that was aired on Four Corners was abhorrent to every Australian, especially every Australian farmer. I thought it was well summed up by Northern Territory cattle producers Chris and Murray Muldoon, at their Midway Station, when Mrs Muldoon said:

I was absolutely horrified. I made myself watch it, but I couldn't stop crying …

We had no idea things were that bad. I think it's a small proportion of the Indonesian industry, but that's no excuse, it's not acceptable.

Let me say that my own reaction was very similar. Senator Ludwig, the Australian Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, had an immediate response. His response was to promptly prevent Australian cattle being slaughtered in such appalling circumstances by slapping bans on unsatisfactory Indonesian facilities. That was absolutely the right decision. Once more, the minister made the decision promptly; he acted decisively.

But that is not the government's way. We all know that the decision-making process of this government is always burdened with incompetence, mismanagement and bungling. Indeed, that has been the trademark of the way in which this government has functioned. Every decision-making process it undertakes is a litany of disasters. It governs by committees, reviews and inquiries. But this minister had actually dared to be decisive and make a decision on the spot. Once more, he got it right, but that was unacceptable to certain nervous Nellies on the government back benches. It was too much for them to bear to have a minister actually make a decision and, once more, for that decision to be the right one. So, apparently, they got in the ear of the Prime Minister, whose knees got weaker and weaker. She contacted the minister to tell him that he had to reverse his decision. They humiliated their own minister, who had done the right thing.

The Prime Minister told him to back off and to implement immediately a total ban on all exports of Australian live animals to Indonesia. This ban covered not just the abattoirs that had been identified as having bad practice. Indeed, a list was prepared by the RSPCA and others, upon which the minister had first acted. There was no room for any abattoir that was not covered by that list or indeed subsequently identified as being one of poor practice to be separate from those who were actually doing the right thing. The point that seems to have been lost in the debate at that time, but which is very important in this debate, is that a number of abattoirs in Indonesia have world's best practice. They are leaders in good practice. They have slaughtering and processing facilities at least equivalent to what we have in this country—higher standards than are required by the OIE, the world animal health organisation. But the government announced a ban, potentially for six months, on the good abattoirs as well as the bad ones. Those doing the right thing have been penalised along with those who are doing the wrong thing. Those who spent money on putting in place world's best practice are being denied an opportunity to remain in business.

Clearly it was important to make an immediate call to ban those abattoirs with unsatisfactory practices, but the subsequent ham-fisted decision did not take into account the fact that there are many facilities—or at least a number of facilities, with others in the process of being upgraded—where the trade could have reasonably remained in operation. Indeed, some of these facilities could have stood as an example to other places. One of the worst things about this decision to ban everything was that it ended the incentives for Indonesian abattoirs to do the right thing. Why should you spend money? Why should you incur extra costs if you are going to be treated exactly the same as abattoirs that are not doing the right thing?

Earlier in the debate that we have just had, the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was critical of me for having suggested that we could get the trade back up in operation very quickly. Let me give you a very specific example where the trade could recommence within 24 hours without any risk that Australian animals would end up in an unsatisfactory abattoir. Let me tell you about the 1,937 cattle currently being held in an AQIS certified holding yard in Port Hedland. They are all NLIS tagged. These are Australian cattle, owned by an Australian company. They are ready to be transported on an Australian owned and operated livestock carrier with full AMSA accreditation. They are to be delivered to an Australian owned and operated feedlot that has a full set of quality assurance procedures which are independently audited by an international company. The cattle are to be sent there for 80 to 110 days, then they are to be slaughtered in an Australian owned and operated abattoir and processing facility. There are many Australian staff in this facility. It has HACCP and ISO 9001 accreditation.

After the cattle are slaughtered, the beef will be boxed and distributed by a company half owned by the same Australian company. It is a closed loop. What is the reason for banning this shipment from departing Australia? Was it this shipment that was the catalyst for the minister's decision when he was overruled by the Prime Minister? They could have sent Australian animals on Australian ships to an Australian abattoir to be processed by Australians and distributed through Indonesia by Australians. Why cannot that trade be allowed to recommence immediately? In addition to everything else, it would provide an example and a lead to others. If you wanted to, you could put inspectors in to make sure there is nothing lost along the way and that the tags that are already on these animals are regularly read. You could put all of those kinds of conditions in place—and this shipment could be on the water within 24 hours. The reality is that the government's ham-fisted approach, turning good policy response into bad policy response, has sent shudders right through the industry.

The Ramadan festival is nigh—the time when the demand for livestock in Indonesia peaks. Indonesia cannot stand by and allow the loss of the meat for this festival. I am told that Indonesia is already inquiring about sourcing stock from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and even India. None of those countries will be as demanding as Australia when it comes to the treatment of the animals that go to Indonesia. They are not investing any money in improving animal welfare standards in the marketplace. They do not have the disease-free status of the herds we have in Australia, so imports of those cattle to Indonesia will bring foot-and-mouth disease and other diseases close to our borders. The abattoirs are not going to stay idle because there are no Australian cattle. The cattle will come from other places where standards and concerns are not as high.

In addition to the government's ill-considered approach to delivering the best possible animal welfare outcomes in Indonesia—and, for that matter, in Australia—the government made this decision without any plan to deal with the immediate implications of the decision. They gave no thought to the consequences of what they had done. There were 13,000 head or thereabouts in quarantine, ready for departure. There were 150,000 head in the train and 250,000 either about to be mustered or in various stages of the process of assembling for the trade. The jobs of hundreds were at stake—stockmen, truckies, helicopter pilots, vets, food suppliers, agents, wharf workers, seamen and shopkeepers. Whole towns have been put at risk because of this ill-thought-out decision by a government that is simply unable to take a positive direction.

Instead the minister announces a repeat of the Labor way of making decisions—a whole stack of reviews. They appoint Mr Farmer, but he will take six months to consider all of these sorts of issues. There will be no industry left in six months time. The dry season will have passed, these cattle will have to have been dispersed in some way or another and the industry will not be able to recover again for the next season, whenever that might happen. Action needs to be taken urgently. It could be done now if the government had the will and if they were of a mind to do it.

Let us look at some of the practical implications of what has happened. This is a $320 million industry—47 per cent of our total live cattle exports. In reality, however, it is a billion dollar industry because there are so many other industries that are attached to it. There has been an immediate drop in the cattle market across Australia and meat in Australian stores has devalued. A Western Australian helicopter musterer, Colin Lauritsen, said he would just have to find something else to do for a living. His heli-mustering business in the Gascoyne is grounded. Shares in Australia's largest cattle producer, AACO, were placed in a trading hold as the company assesses the impact of the government's decision. The General Manager of the Milne AgriGroup, which supplies cattle feed, said that he will not be supplying feed to those markets and the company will have to lay off shifts of workers due to the drop in sales. South Australian feed producer JT Johnson has 500 tonnes of feed sitting in Darwin. The company director Robbie Johnson said that he will be forced to let employees go. Executive Director of the Australian Livestock Transporters Association, Philip Halton, says the impact on truck companies will be severe. They are concerned also about the state of the domestic market. The Broome Port Authority says it is struggling to make ends meet after losing two of its most important industries. It says that if the export ban is not lifted soon, the port will struggle to remain viable. Perhaps ABC's Chris Uhlmann, in his report on The Drum, made some of the most important comments:

There are 82 Indigenous cattle properties in northern Australia with strong links to the live export trade—54 in the Territory, 22 in the Kimberley and Pilbara and six in far north Queensland. These directly support 700 real Indigenous jobs—

they are so rare, as we know—

and it's estimated they indirectly support a further 17,000 people in station communities. And that's not counting the Indigenous employees working for non-Indigenous companies. All up the cattle industry that trades with Indonesia employs 11,000 people.

Kirsty Forshaw at Nita Downs draws attention to the problem with cattle welfare, saying, 'Cows are already pregnant and there will not be enough food for all of them. It is a no-brainer. It is not one or two or even 20 that we are talking about; it is thousands and thousands of cattle that are going to suffer and die.' That is not a good outcome. That is not a good outcome for the people of Northern Australia and it is particularly not a good outcome for animal welfare.

I know that considerable effort will need to be undertaken over a period of time to get the whole of the Indonesian industry to a stage which we regard as satisfactory. The industry needs to play a key role in continuing to raise standards in Indonesia. The government should use some of the foreign aid that it gives to Indonesia to invest in these abattoirs and to improve animal welfare and animal welfare practices. If we care about Australian cattle, don't we also care about Indonesian cattle and Brazilian cattle? Don't we want good animal welfare outcomes for all animals? That means improving the whole chain, not just for Australian cattle but for all animals. I know that this will take some time, but what the minister can do and can do immediately is open up the trade for those who are doing the right thing, those who can guarantee the security of their supply chain and guarantee there will be no leakage to abattoirs of unsatisfactory standards and, as a result, help to encourage investment in best practice right across the country.

Indonesia has been a good friend of Australia and this has been a good market for us. The government has bungled yet another issue. The minister had made the right decision. I call on members of the government to let him alone and let him get on with implementing the good decision that he made, which will deliver the best possible outcome not just for the Australian cattle industry but particularly for animal welfare in Indonesia.

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