Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Where is the farmer? When we're talking about—

Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—

Where is the farmer? You talk a lot about agriculture but where is the farmer? Here we are, listening to an MPI, and I've been very interested to hear the comments about live export. The opposition have said they were going to completely shut the live sheep trade. In Western Australia, the damage that that would have done would have been to the multimillions of dollars that that industry is worth to Western Australia. What's worse is that what's not well understood on the other side is the effect it has on small, regional communities. This would be exacerbated right across Western Australia in the areas where the sheep are produced. Someone like the livestock transporter frequently was the only person in a small community who was driving that local economy. The fuel supplier, the local store, the employment and the mechanic are all part of that supply chain and value chain. That was at risk. The farmers were at risk from their climate change policies—that open-ended, not costed climate change policy.

I'm proud to be a farmer. I'll stand up in this place and anywhere else and defend our farmers and be proud of them. I'm also proud to be a dairy farmer. That's in spite of perhaps what's said, at times, about dairy farmers.

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