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

I rise, in the last few minutes before we divide on this motion, to make a few comments about the live export trade and how it impacts and benefits the people of my electorate of O'Connor, where probably 70 per cent plus of sheep for the export trade come from. The balance would come from the member for Durack's electorate, which borders mine.

That trade is worth around $130 million. The supply chain employs around 3,000 people in various jobs, whether they be truck drivers working pellet mills or workers on the wharves. So it's a significant industry for Western Australia—and I want to emphasise 'Western Australia'. It is now a peculiarly Western Australian industry. We export around a million sheep out of Western Australia in any given year, and that's part of a total worldwide trade of around 10 million to 12 million animals. So we account for around 10 per cent of the world trade.

My good friend the member for Fremantle, who's one of the really decent people in this place, claimed that the industry has no social licence. I'm sorry, Member for Fremantle: the Premier of Western Australia does not support the federal Labor government's policy of phasing out the industry at some undetermined date in the future. The Premier has said quite clearly that he does not want to see eastern state MPs and politicians—he didn't say 'from inner-city electorates' but I assume that's what he meant—coming to Western Australia and telling us to close down one of our important primary industries.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I'm here today to speak in support of what is a very important trade for Western Australia. That has been illustrated very much in the last few months, when we haven't been able to find workers for our local abattoirs. We rely on Pacific island labour. I attended the Fiji Day celebrations in Albany just a couple of weeks ago and met some of the Fijians working at the local abattoir. They are the most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet, but we rely on them leaving their families and coming to Australia. Some of those young men have been here for over 12 months without seeing their families. They're desperately homesick, desperate to go home, but they're staying here to keep that abattoir going.

Even with Pacific island labour, the abattoirs are operating at around 60 per cent capacity at the moment. What does that mean for Western Australian growers? During the winter moratorium, which lasts around four months, the trade cannot continue. During that four-month period, when the abattoirs are at capacity, farmers cannot turn off their animals. That's fine this year, we're having a wonderful season in Western Australia. Those sheep that have been kept on property for up to six weeks longer than they otherwise would have been are well fed and well cared for on the grass that's growing due to the great rains we've had this season.

Deputy Speaker Goodenough, let me tell you that in previous seasons, when the rainfall hasn't been as bounteous, that would have led to a massive animal welfare issue; sheep that could not be fed and could not be maintained without significant cost would have died on property. So it's critically important that we have that live export trade as a safety valve to take that surplus stock—those sheep that cannot be processed locally—(a) to pay the farmers and to get some income for them; (b) to take the pressure off the feed on their properties; and (c) to feed our friends and trading partners in the Middle East who rely on our food and trade for their food security. It's critically important for them.

My colleagues have spoken at length about the ESCAS and how that has exported superior animal welfare standards to every part of the world where we export our animals. That's whether it be to Vietnam, China, Indonesia or, indeed, across the Middle East. Those superior standards, which match the standards adhered to in our own abattoirs and our own meat-processing plants here, have been exported to the rest of the world.

I say to the member for Clark—and he'd be aware of this—that less than 12 months ago a ship from Romania carrying 16,000 sheep in wooden cages and with no animal welfare considerations whatsoever sank in the Black Sea. It took 16,000 sheep to the bottom with it. There are no standards in those countries. The nine to 10 million live sheep that are transported around the world which don't come from Australia will continue to have no standards applied to them—

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