Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's right. If I had my way, they'd all be living in my electorate and the member for Durack's electorate—and we'll do something about that. Come to the Katanning sheep sale next week, or any Wednesday you'd like to name, and I'll meet you there. When you come to my electorate you'll meet truckies like little Benny Poett, who is a great mate of mine. His family have been carting stock for my family for three generations. When he stood up at that meeting in July, he said 'I'm working one week out of four weeks in a month now, and I'm struggling to meet the payments on my truck.' He's one of those 'evil small business people' who work 60, 70 or sometimes 80 hours a week. There is no sympathy on that side of the House for Benny Poett, but there is a lot of sympathy from me because I know him, I know his family and I know his kids. I want to make sure he's got a future and a living.

Chloe McDougall is a young farmer's wife who is actively involved in their business, just like all the farm wives I know in my electorate and my region. With her young son on her hip, she says: 'What's the future for my son?' When I look at the people across the chamber here, they've got no sympathy whatsoever for Chloe McDougall and her family; they could not care less about those people.

Let me tell you about one of the most profound contributions that I've seen at the myriad public meetings I've held in my electorate. At one or two days notice, 160 people turned up in Brookton and 120 in Boyup Brook. A young lady stood up. She had a baby with her. She is married to a local farmer. She told her story, which I thought was very profound. She said she was currently a vegetarian. She had been a radical vegan. She had been a Green all her life. Three years ago, she married a farmer. She had always been opposed to the live export trade, because that's what Greens do. That's because Greens don't understand the industry, they don't know what it is about, and it's an easy target for signalling your virtue: 'I oppose the live export trade.' This young lady, Amy Dyer—and she has been on ABC Radio, so anyone who wants to check this is welcome to go and look it up—said: 'When I married a farmer and I started to understand how the industry work, I changed my mind.' She said that what really changed her mind and flipped her from being a strong opponent of the live export trade to being a strong supporter was that Australia imposes the ESCAS on the rest of the world. Our standards, enforced under the ESCAS, have lifted the standards for the live sheep trade across the world. But it is not only the sheep that are shipped in boats; the domestic processing industries in the countries that we deliver to have massively lifted their standards. If Australia vacates that space, there is nobody who is going to set a standard for the rest of the world. Let me tell you: there are 10 million sheep that are going to be traded whether Australia is in the game are not, and that will be no-one— (Time expired)

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