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

Of course, I rise this evening to vehemently support this motion put by the member for Leichhardt. I am one of those referred to in the rhetorical question from the member for Lyons. I am a supporter of the Northern Australian cattle industry, and I vehemently deny his charge that my cattlemen do not respect, look after and value their cattle as his constituents do. Apparently they came into his office declaring their love for their cattle. Well, there is no greater love for cattle than that exhibited by my northern cattlemen, who raise cattle in very harsh conditions, not the lush, green countryside of Tasmania, where growing anything is pretty easy—and the member for Lyons is fine testament to that! The cattle industry in Northern Australia relies on Bos indicus cattle. Bos indicus cattle are originally an Indian breed of cattle, and they survive in extremely harsh conditions. They sweat, basically, and they therefore feed in daylight hours, because in daylight hours they can put on weight, where poor old English breeds are hiding under a tree somewhere in the shade and they do not eat, do not put on weight and do not as well. It is these same Bos indicus cattle that are the only cattle acceptable to the Indonesians, because they can improve their weight and condition in Indonesia in similar very high-temperature areas.

That is why we that know what is going on in Northern Australia and what the industry is all about are so horrified to believe that an agricultural minister, through a stroke of the pen, as a result of the push from comparatively ignorant members from southern Australian Labor electorates, would declare that the industry is off, leaving hundreds of thousands of cattle stranded in export yards right across Northern Australia with no provision for food or transportation and no answer to the question as to who owns them, who is going to pay for them, who is going to pay for feed and who is going to pay for replacement transport. None of that was answered. There was a stroke of a pen by a maladministrator in the ministry, who said, 'The export industry is off.' This is why we are so vehemently stating that there has been maladministration. There has been an oversimplification by Centrelink staff, who were not prepared in any way—there was no satisfactory briefing whatsoever—as to how applicants could meet the criteria and prove their financial loss as a result of that stroke of the pen by the minister.

That is why we say that the government have to accept responsibility when by that stroke of the pen they virtually laid siege to our nearest neighbour—a quarter of a billion people who were supposedly to accept that a good friend was well intentioned when it said, 'By the way, we're going to starve you of beef.' They do have a wet market. They do have an industry that is not provided with modern refrigeration, not provided with electricity, and the wet market is the way. It is the more and the custom of Indonesian people. The wet market is well understood by the producers in Northern Australia, and that is why it was unacceptable for a government as a knee-jerk reaction, not informed by knowledge but motivated by ignorance, to simply say, 'Well, we've got to stop that.'

Consider that the footage was held by the ABC. It was produced by Animals Australia. At the time of the viewing in the first instance, the witnessing by Animals Australia, it was news. By the time it went to air on Four Corners it was not news; it was a cold, calculated attempt to bring down an industry because PETA, Animals Australia, RSPCA and Pew, all intended to destroy the live market out of Australia to overseas. It is the only industry in Northern Australia that will be sustainable commercially. If we lose that market because of the actions of the Greens in league with arrogant, ignorant, ill-informed Labor members from south-eastern Australia, it will be to their eternal shame.

Debate adjourned.

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