Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I've listened with interest to the contributions to this debate on foot-and-mouth disease from both sides, and I think there is great deal of goodwill here. While there have been some political statements, I don't think there needs to be, because this is an issue we can deal with based on the facts. I've certainly worked very hard in the last few weeks to get across the facts and understand exactly what the issues are.

Tuesday a fortnight ago, the Great Southern Zone of the WA Farmers Federation called a meeting of members and interested parties in the town of Mount Barker at very short notice. I had a commitment in Esperance that morning, 470 kilometres away, but I thought I'd better get to this meeting, because obviously this topic is something that's of great importance to my constituents. Those of you who've been to meetings of farm groups will know that usually you're lucky if 10 diehards turn up. So I was quite stunned when I arrived at the meeting. There were 150 people, which was the maximum that they could fit into the Plantagenet Sporting Club's Sounness Park Recreation Facility. There were another 591 people who had joined that meeting via live stream. So that is the level of interest and concern among my constituents.

The WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development gave a very concise and pertinent update to the people at that meeting, and they explained the AUSVETPLAN. My good friend the member for Paterson was wrong to say there was no plan. The AUSVETPLAN has been in place since 2014. Both departmental vets and commercial vets, including vets across my electorate, have travelled to places like Nepal, where they've dealt with foot-and-mouth disease in the flesh, so to speak, and gained experience. So there is a very comprehensive plan that will kick into place upon an incursion into this country.

The impact of that incursion—just to touch on some of the issues that have already been mentioned—would be an immediate three-day freeze on movement of animals, meat, milk and other livestock products. That's small bickies compared to the ongoing impact of the loss of trade access. As has already been mentioned here, the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in their briefing—and thank you to Minister Watt for the briefing that he provided to all members last week—indicated that the best-case scenario for regaining that trade access after a small incursion that was jumped on and controlled immediately would be at least several years. For a country that exports 70 per cent of its livestock products—and Western Australia exports 90 per cent of its livestock products— the damage that that would do to my communities and my industries is beyond my comprehension. In Great Britain in 2001, the incursion reached 56 properties. There were six million livestock destroyed, and today, 20 years later, their industry is only back to 70 per cent of what it was in 2001. This is the sort of impact we're talking about on the communities across my electorate.

I cannot speak on this issue without drawing the attention of the Chamber and the House to the comments of the Western Australian Minister for Agriculture and Food. The Western Australian Minister for Agriculture and Food, when she was questioned on this issue—and I'm quoting directly from the West Australian newspaper here—said the disease 'would "not be catastrophic" and could even lead to cheaper meat and milk'. I'm not going to say any more about that other than that today we had a passenger at the Darwin airport who was intercepted with a sausage-and-egg McMuffin and a ham-and-cheese croissant in their baggage. That customer had filled out a declaration form stating that they had no food products in their luggage. I can only assume that that passenger may well have seen the media on the comments of the Western Australian minister that this is no big deal and, in fact, you might even get a bit of cheap meat. Well, I say to the Western Australian Minister for Agriculture and Food: yes, you might get a bit of cheap meat while livestock are being destroyed and farmers are going out of business, but it won't last very long, because we won't have a domestic livestock industry if we lose that 90 per cent export market. She should be thoroughly ashamed of herself, and everybody around the country who has heard those comments, except Labor politicians, has called for her resignation. I urge her to do the honourable thing and stand aside and let someone that the farmers of WA have confidence in take that position.

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