Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

To say that Labor is doing that is ridiculous and untrue. It is not true. Cattle are different to sheep; the voyage is different; animals sweat differently—it's called science, but we know where you stand on that.

The industry themselves, as we know, have now self-imposed a break in this trade because they know they don't have the social licence to operate it during those hot summer months. They warned this government earlier—before 2½ thousand sheep perished on the Emanuel Exports transport ship—that is, people and businesses doing the right thing warned this government that many exporters were doing the wrong thing and causing unending cruelty to Australian sheep going to the Middle East. It is a large industry .There's no doubt about it: no-one wants to see an industry collapse. Of course we don't. How could we? But the industry have called on themselves to take this break, while they have to wait for the government to regulate it properly.

I mean, what are you people doing? How many things can you put off to the never-never? Do you want to put this off to next year and let the industry just, you know, run itself? It doesn't want to run itself; it needs leadership from government—and you're out to lunch. You're just waiting for, I don't know, Christmas drinks and a bit of fruitcake. It's obscene; it's not fair on the livestock themselves; and it's certainly not fair on the people that work in the industry. The inaction and negligence of this government is what has led to this export trade coming to an end. The government has no plan. The only plan is to put any debate on this off to the never-never. Well, that's not good enough for agriculturists in this country, and it's not good enough for the agriculture industry in Western Australia. You desert them because of your laziness and your ignorance. Through your own fault, you're dismissing the importance of regulation which the industry itself has called for.

I really hope the members for Forrest, Durack and O'Connor have a bit of a think about what they have failed to do over the past five years. If they're now the protectors of agriculture in this country and in Western Australia, they have failed, and failed miserably. I have to back up the member for Fremantle: I've driven the streets of Fremantle where we see those sheep; the sheep go from Baldivis up to Freo. People are appalled—and these sheep haven't even reached the ships yet! These are sheep that are packed tightly into trucks. This is cruelty: they're packed in, their hoofs or their heads are caught, they're in cages, and they're caught in the traffic of a hot Perth summer. It's a disgraceful state of affairs that you are overseeing, and you are not listening to people in your communities.

We have people from the agricultural regions of Western Australia also calling for an end to this, not just the industry associations. The farmers themselves know how disgraceful this has become. I genuinely feel a bit sorry for the current minister for agriculture. Agriculture in this country is a magnificent thing. We know this country is built on it; Western Australia certainly is. We know the importance of agricultural science to Western Australia. He's been left with a great big steaming one, because the former minister for agriculture left him with a depleted department and has failed to regulate. When we see those thousands of sheep get thrown into the ocean, under this current regulation that's not a breach? No wonder the Australian people are shocked and appalled. No wonder they're flooding email boxes and our electorate offices with phone calls. It's just no wonder. This government is a disgrace.

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