Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And when one realises that the concern here is with union members and voters in an electorate and not for the welfare of animals, it puts a level of hypocrisy into this debate that is absolutely intolerable. We have people on properties whose whole livelihood is being destroyed by a decision based on, primarily, ignorance. Some of the impacts of the decision are that kids are being ripped out of school. Families will not be able to pay their mortgage. They made their last payment on it more than 12 months ago because of the extended wet. We have truck owners who will not be able to make payments on their prime mover, which they purchased solely for the purpose of moving live export cattle across Northern Australia. We have helicopter pilots in debt to the bank for repayments on choppers that are there specifically for the muster season in Northern Australia. This decision has far deeper, more meaningful ramifications than appeasing a few members of the union. If you go around abattoirs in Australia, you will find that most of the employees are working on 457 visas anyhow. So this nonsense about taking jobs away from Australia is just that—absolute nonsense.

If people in this nation truly want over time to achieve some improvement in the welfare of animals at slaughter in Indonesia—I underline the fact that it is necessary to slaughter animals before you eat them; it is a prime requisite, which comes as a shock to many people in suburban Australia—and if the suburban Australian population are truly concerned about improving the conditions of those animals going to slaughter, they would send bouquets to the MLA and to the livestock industry, because more has been achieved for the welfare of animals being slaughtered in Indonesia in the last 15 years by the MLA than any other institution—more than the RSPCA, more than PETA, more than Pew and more than Animals Australia. If the ignorami of Australia realised this, they would work with MLA and they would start to achieve more than just five abattoirs being convinced to use stun guns. We would start to work on the greatest majority of the 700-plus abattoirs. How members of this place can believe that 3,000 years of culture could be overturned by— (Time expired)

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