Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

In essence, the Live Animal Export Prohibition (Ending Cruelty) Bill 2018 would end all live sheep and cattle exports from Australia in three years time, in 2021, and in the interim would put in place much tougher safeguards to help reduce the cruelty in the export industry.

I have tabled this bill in this parliament a number of times before and it has never gained the support of the government or the alternative government. It is indeed regrettable that I need to stand here again to table this bill, because we have a very serious animal cruelty problem and it remains unaddressed.

In essence, the live animal export industry is a cruel industry and, by now, we have seen countless exposes of that cruelty—the cruelty on the export vessels and the cruelty suffered by, in particular, beef cattle and sheep once they reach their markets. We've seen exposes of cruelty in countries as diverse as those in South-East Asia, in places like Vietnam and Indonesia—many times in Indonesia—and in South Asia, in places like Pakistan. Who could forget that shocking footage of Australian sheep being buried alive in Pakistan? And then there are all the exposes out of the Middle East—a whole range of countries there—and in countries there that we might not expect, like Israel and Turkey. Indeed, in the time I've been in this place, there have been countless exposes—so many exposes that it is clear that there is systemic cruelty in the live animal export trade and that the only way to end the cruelty is to end the trade.

What we saw on the Awassi Express recently was awful cruelty being suffered by tens of thousands of Australian sheep on a vessel in which more than 2,000 sheep died. That wasn't a one-off. That wasn't just a rogue exporter or a rogue operator of one bad ship. That was a snapshot of what is typical in the live animal export trade. It is systematically cruel.

It's also not in Australia's best economic interest. Every time we send a vessel with thousands of beef cattle or sheep overseas, we're sending the jobs overseas that could have been established in Australia to process those animals in a more carefully regulated way in which any cruelty would be minimised or removed. We send those jobs overseas; so it's not in Australia's economic self-interest.

It also ruins our reputation. Being a Tasmanian, I'm very, very alert to the importance of a state or a country's good reputation as a producer of clean, healthy food that is produced ethically. So how can we, on one hand, go into overseas markets to try and sell ourselves and sell our agricultural produce when it's just as likely that we are going to see the people we're talking to on the news that night as a result of another expose on how we treat our animals and how our governments are prepared—almost happy, I would say—that animals are treated that way on those vessels and when they reach the export markets?

Apart from the fact that the live animal export industry is systematically cruel, apart from the fact that it's not in our economic self-interest because we send jobs overseas and apart from the fact that it ruins our reputation as a producer of food stuff to world markets, it just doesn't have public support. How many polls do we need to see before a government—any government—gets that people hate the live animal export industry? Sure, there are hundreds of farmers and thousands of others in the industry who benefit from the industry. But what about the 25 million Australians? What about the vast majority of Australians? It's undeniable that when you poll people who know anything about the live export trade—and not just the long-haul sheep trade to the Middle East but also the beef cattle trade into a number of countries, especially in our region, in South-East Asia and North Asia—they say that they hate it. They hate the cruelty. They hate the fact that we're sending our jobs overseas. They hate the fact that governments—a succession of governments—are ignoring public opinion. A generation of politicians are wilfully ignoring the fact that their job is to represent their community. It just beggars belief that so many people come into this place and, when the votes are to be had, don't vote to end the cruelty; they vote to perpetuate the cruelty. Every time they do that, in just about every electorate in this country they're treating their constituents with contempt. They think they can recover their position by standing in the shopping centre a month before the next election to convince people to vote for them. And then they wonder why they're voted out or why their government is voted out.

This isn't just my opinion. It was fascinating to see in The West Australian on Saturday, just two days ago, a revelation that the Australian Livestock Exporters' Council commissioned a study five years ago in which it was warned that the industry faced 'extinction' unless it cleaned up its act. So, the industry knows it's in strife. The industry knows that it's only being propped up by a succession of dodgy governments that are beholden to the industry and beholden to people in the industry. This is an industry that is not only propped up by dodgy governments but also propped up by myths, such as the myth that these exposes are extraordinary, that the industry generally is sound. But, as I've already discussed in detail, there is so much evidence that the industry is systemically cruel, that what we see on the TV are not one-offs; they're just more and more snapshots of a fundamentally cruel industry.

And of course governments say, 'But in these markets they'll only buy fresh produce.' That's bunkum. It is not the case that people of some religions will buy only live sheep and cattle. It's a fact that we send almost three times, in value, more processed sheepmeat than live sheepmeat to the Middle East. That's right: the people in the Middle East, largely of the Islamic faith, are buying mostly Australian frozen and chilled processed sheepmeat—processed in Australia, employing Australians in jobs, by companies that are paying taxes in this country. So it is a myth, a lie, when people in the industry say that they can sell only live animals into those markets or that they don't have refrigeration in Indonesia or in the Middle East. Heavens: what paternalism, what racism! Of course they've got fridges; they're just like us.

And it's a myth that the recent Moss review has got to the bottom of things and made hard recommendations that will clean up the industry. The fact is that although the Moss review did recommend tougher standards and tougher penalties, it still—at the end of the day, by the end of the report—came down in support of a cruel industry. That alone fundamentally discredits the Moss review. This excuse of, 'If we don't sell live sheep and live cattle into these countries they'll go and buy it from somewhere else'—do you know what? If we've got a good food reputation they'll probably switch to buying processed meat from our country. And if they do go somewhere else, well, so be it; at least we can know that we live in a country that has integrity. This nonsense, this furphy, that some farmers are solely interested in feeding the world—what bunkum! They're businesses. They're trying to make a buck. They want to have the lowest production costs. That's a myth.

In closing, can I just say the refusal of a succession of governments—the refusal of the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Labor Party—to shut the industry down is a shocking thing. It's a shocking betrayal of our constituents. Well, I say to the government and the alternative government: you can start to repair your reputation. You can start to represent the will of the Australian people by getting behind this latest version of this bill, which, in essence, would give the industry three years to prepare for it, and in three years time the live export of sheep and cattle from this country would be over; it would be ended forever, as countries like New Zealand decided to do, sensibly, years ago. So I call on the government and I call on the opposition: if you care about animal welfare, if you care about representing your constituents, then this time please get behind this bill.

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