Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mutton, thank you. It is a significant, but nowhere near major, part of our red meat trade. There will be some farmers, particularly in WA, whose business models to date are geared towards growing the live sheep export market. They will need particular attention and care as we transition, as a nation, out of this trade. And as a nation we will transition out of this trade; it's inevitable in coming. Whether it's under a Labor government after the next election, or some time after that under a coalition government, this trade is coming to an end.

I remind those opposite that the Live Sheep Long Haul Export Prohibition Bill we're discussing today is not a Labor bill; it's from a member of the government. A regional Liberal member has put this bill forward. Don't sit over there and think that somehow this is a Labor conspiracy to end live sheep exports. This is coming from a member of that side. The fact is that, despite improvements in welfare over the last hundred or so years, those improvements fall well short of acceptable community standards. Standards in the community have lifted; the community expects more. The live sheep trade cannot meet those standards.

In 1985 there was a Senate inquiry that recommended an end to the live sheep export trade. The industry has tried for 33 years to get its act together and it simply can't. We're not talking about historical incidents of cruelty here. We are talking about things that happened last year and only months ago. When is the next one going to happen? Will it be next week or next month? The fact is that this industry can't get its act together because it can't make a dollar, it can't turn a profit, with good animal welfare standards. With the standards that require good animal welfare, the costs would overtake the profit that they would make This is a low-profit exercise. In the agricultural sector, it's low value.

Farmers are not misty-eyed. We know that animals are born and raised for slaughter. It is their purpose. They would not exist if it were not for our requirement for their meat. Opposition to live export is not a slippery slope towards compulsory veganism. There will be no enforced wearing of Birkenstocks or consumption of tofu. Opposition to the live export of sheep is an acknowledgement that the beasts we raise to eat deserve better than to end their short lives in filth and misery.

I represent a regional seat and plenty of producers of lamb and mutton. It would have been unthinkable 20 or even 10 years ago for an MP who represented an agricultural seat to speak against live export. But there is me. There is the member for Farrer, who proposed this bill. There is the member for La Trobe. That's an outer-metro Liberal seat with one or two cockies in it, I'd imagine. We are all opposed to this trade. Even the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, while not opposing live export per se, has made it clear he finds the current state of the trade to be, let's say, 'suboptimal', because his language would not get past the chair.

Not all farmers in my state are on board with ending live trade. It doesn't really affect them personally, but they don't like the idea of closing off access to markets. I understand that. But there are plenty of farmers in my state who do applaud the moves to end this trade, as they see it as forcing the sector to get more serious about value-adding and about adding a premium to what we sell and produce. Labor will get rid of live exports if we're elected to government. We'll phase it out. That's a welcome proposition for the next government.

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