Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports Bill 2018.

I think we should remember some of the basic facts here: 99.7 per cent of sheep that go to live export get off the ship in a better or the same condition—99.7 per cent. Of course there are times where there are issues that need to be addressed—absolutely. There are issues that need to be addressed, like there are on the roads if there is an accident, or like there are in a factory if there is a workplace accident or like there are in so many areas. But those are not solved by closing down an industry. And that seems to be the intent of the Labor Party: to close down an industry.

We've had a go at this before. They closed down the live cattle industry and that ended in an absolute disaster for the people of Northern Australia and for Indigenous communities—for the whole lot—because there was this sense, this conceit, that thousands of kilometres away they were going to make a decision about other people's lives. And now we're going down this path again. They're deciding, without any real attachment to the industry, without actually being in the industry, that they're going to close another person's industry down.

We know the path that this will follow. The people who are pursuing this are not going to stop with live sheep. After they've finished with live sheep, it will be live cattle. And after it's live cattle, it will be the transport industry. You can't believe for one second that these people—the animal rights people with this anthropomorphic principle that all animals are people and all people are animals—are going to relent after they close down just one section of the live export industry.

In this nation, under this government, we have made it our target to get a better return to the farm gate. Whilst the Labor government was there, there was no real escalation—in fact, agricultural output in their last quarter went backwards. Agricultural returns went backwards. But we brought about that record return for lambs, mutton and live sheep. We went to Western Australia and Western Australian towns, and they said: 'You have to do something about revitalising the economics of these towns. You have to get the live sheep trade going again.' And we did, and it did. So now we are saying to these regional towns: 'Sorry, you go back to being poor. That's what we're going to deliver to you. We're going to make an edict from here, from the inner suburbs, that you be poor. We think that's the only thing you deserve: to be poor.'

And that comes from the Labor Party, which is supposed to support those on the peripheries. And there is their vague promise, 'Somewhere down the path there is going to be something that may help you.' No-one is going to believe that. No-one takes them seriously. We can't take them seriously, because we've got to take them by their track record—their track record which decimated regional towns and industries, and that has no empathy and no understanding of those away from the inner suburbs of the major urban capitals.

We also have to note that we're living in a global economy and note the cultural practices of some of our major trading partners. Some of our major trading partners in agricultural products are Islamic. I spent a lot of my time as a minister going to the Islamic countries to make sure that we were seen as a global trading partner. Now we're deciding that we'll no longer do that. After we've stopped preaching to regional towns, we'll start preaching to Islamic countries around the world about how they should act. I'll tell you what: they're not going to listen to our sermon. We've got to be really careful because, if we start having a conceited approach to how they live their lives, they might have a very parochial approach as to how they trade with us, or whether they do at all. Might I remind people that there are a lot of meatworkers in the processing sector who sell meat to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait and, if we lose those markets, there will be downward pressure on their jobs and a reduction in their prospects.

We're expanding. I think the biggest manufacturing industry in Australia is the meat processing industry. That's where the jobs are, and it's worked hand in glove with the revitalisation of the ag sector because of the returns that are there. The Labor Party represent a closure of the live export industry. They represent a reduction in income to regional towns. They want you to go back to being poor. That's what they believe you should be. If you're in a regional town, away from an urban capital, the Labor Party have no policy for you but that you should be poor again.

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