Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm particularly concerned to follow the member for Fremantle, who was one of the previous speakers, and hear a Western Australian representative happy to shut down a $250 million industry in Western Australia—that's what it's worth directly. It's just appalling that any representative from Western Australia would choose to rip this sort of money out of our state.

There is a very personal face to this issue that's often ignored, and that's the face of the farmers and the small regional communities. I've lived through something which was another very tough experience, and that was the deregulation of the dairy industry. It had a significant impact on very small towns and communities right throughout the South West at the time. Overnight, we lost over $30 million out of my Harvey shire alone. Can you imagine what losing $250 million would mean to those small communities in the electorates of the member for O'Connor and the member for Durack, most particularly?

These ideas of transition just don't bear thinking about. I was talking to a sheep producer on the plane. He had decided that he would take, as he put it, the '$50-a-head hit' and send his sheep to the abattoir instead of sending them on a live export ship, because of timing. He arranged it with an abattoir, but when he got back in touch with them, when the sheep were due to be accepted, they didn't have the capacity to process them. So what on earth was he meant to do with those animals? Of course, a wether is an entirely different animal from a lamb or from the sheep that you would export. They are entirely different beasts. What is it going to do to the flocks of sheep in Western Australia? We know what's going to happen and we're already starting to see some of the impacts.

As one of the few farmers in this place I am particularly frustrated and hurt to hear the comments made about cruelty. We as farmers are so passionate about our animals. We love our animals and what they produce. As a dairy farmer I rely on my beautiful cows to do what they do. I know that our sheep farmers are the same. We actually understand animals better than most and we have to deal with the harsh realities of what life is like on a farm. Equally, we're the people who keep the small communities operating.

There is talk of transition. It all sounds very easy. If we were ever to have a Labor government and they shut down the trade as they plan to, the impact would be immediate. There wouldn't be the nice, simple transition that's being talked about. You would see what happened in the market flow straight back to the farmer and, equally, flow directly back to all the small businesses that support the industry. I'm talking about everyone—those who cart the animals, the mechanics who service those vehicles and everyone who is part of that small community. Even the local fuel supplier is part of the supply chain. The impact would flow to the farmers and small businesses in those communities.

If you have never lived in a small community—and many opposite have not—then you wouldn't understand how it works. We need the income from all of those small businesses just to keep our communities operating. We need those people buying their inputs from other local small retailers to keep them operating as well. They're the same people who support our local community service organisations, our local sporting organisations and our emergency services. They are often one and the same people. Farmers contribute at that level. The small businesses, the fuel suppliers, the mechanics, the people in transport and the people in earthmoving are all part of the supply chain and contribute to small communities.

It's very easy for those who live in city electorates to dictate to those of us who live and work in small regional communities and say: 'We're going to shut down your industry. We're going to shut you down.' There is no care, no responsibility and no real interest in the hardship that that no doubt will create. The small communities are going to continue to fade away in the electorates of O'Connor and Durack, but there's no concern from those opposite for the people. How about you walk a mile in the shoes of those of us who live and work in rural and regional Australia? For a change, how about you walk a mile in our shoes and live in the real world?

On my farm there are times when we have to put down animals for different reasons. We hate that, but it is a necessity at times. It's a place that you don't understand or know. You don't care about what we as farmers deal with on a daily basis. Even worse, you have no respect for what we do and what we contribute not only to our families but to the rural and regional sector and exports. What happened during the global financial crisis when Labor, who are on the other side, made some dreadful decisions? What industry underpinned our economy during that time and kept exports up? Agriculture. Yet they turned around and shut down live cattle exports. Now you're looking at shutting down sheep and cattle exports. It's a double whammy this time—not just one; both. There is no care at all for those of us who live and work in rural and regional Australia. There's not one skerrick of thought.

When you go to the countries where this meat actually arrives, as I did when I spent time there with the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, there is no cold chain. You talk about packaged meat. It will rot, because people don't have electricity; they have to buy their meat fresh from a market. The animal actually has to be slaughtered overnight so that it's fresh to the market itself and they can buy it in the small amounts that they can actually consume on a daily basis. That is actually how it works. We are taking away the options for those people as well. In Australia, the standards we have, as we know, lead the world in this space. There will continue to be live exports, but they won't have the extraordinary conditions and the standards that Australia has to get those cattle to those nations. That market will still exist. It's not going to disappear overnight. Those cattle will come from countries that don't have the standards that we have.

In this place, I've repeatedly said that I'm always proud to be a farmer in Australia. There are people on the other side who I know have absolutely no respect for what Australian farmers do and the enormous contribution they make to the small rural and regional communities to keep them viable. Every time you take a dollar out of a rural and regional community, it hurts every one of us. That's because we are interdependent. If we don't do the work, if we don't support our community service organisations and if we aren't the ones helping with emergency services—it is our dollars that help to keep these organisations alive, thriving and able to look after our people—then no-one else does. We rely on each other. That's how rural and regional Australia works. That's how we operate.

I am really proud to be an Australian farmer, but those opposite try to make me feel as though I should be ashamed. Well, I am not. I am proud of every Australian farmer. I really am appalled at and ashamed of those opposite, particularly the Western Australians who will stand in this place and say, 'We support cutting $250 million worth of value out of the pockets of not only our farmers and our producers but all the small businesses and those associated communities.' You know that value will not come back to those communities. It doesn't matter what you think you will do; the value will not come back. Suffering and problems will exist in rural and regional Australia as a result. I'm proud every day to be a farmer.

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