Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill, amends the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act 2019 to give the inspecting office of the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports expanded objectives and functions in relation to animal welfare in live exports. The inspector-general will be required to report any misconduct by a livestock export official and to publish a report on each review, a work plan for each financial year and an annual report—good.

This is a welcome step, but unfortunately it doesn't go far enough to achieve what is actually needed to eliminate animal cruelty in the live export industry or more broadly across Australia. The cruelty cannot be regulated out. I believe that the only thing that would actually stop that cruelty is ending that industry entirely. The Greens will move amendments in the Senate to strengthen this bill in relation to animal welfare. My colleague Senator Faruqi, who has been a tireless advocate in this area, will speak to those amendments in the other place.

What I am speaking to today in this place—what I want to say—is that fundamentally this bill is a missed opportunity to properly deal with the cultural cancer of institutionalised animal cruelty in our country. The expanded powers in this amended bill apply to live exports only, when we know that there are so many other areas of animal cruelty that the Labor government appears to have no plans to address. This bill doesn't cover the export of non-livestock animals, the welfare of kangaroos killed for commercial purposes, the trade of animal products or native wildlife management. This bill does nothing to stop public money being funnelled into the cruel and inhumane horse and greyhound racing industries. In fact, the Queensland Labor government is about to give $40 million of public money—our money; your money—to fund a new greyhound-racing track in Ipswich, not far from my electorate. That is $40 million of public money that could instead be spent on schools or hospitals or any other public good.

Every time a dog races in Queensland it has about a three per cent chance of being killed. The state government has no idea about what happens to retired greyhounds and does nothing to stop them being euthanised instead of being adopted by a loving family. It is absolutely appalling, I believe, that this industry continues to be propped up by the Queensland Labor government and by every other state government in this country. It's not just greyhound racing, either. The horseracing industry also receives huge amounts of government funding. Of course, both of these industries also exploit vulnerable people, draining their purses through addictive gambling practices. Public money should be nowhere near these appalling and destructive industries. It is public money that could be going to schools and hospitals, as I said.

It's no wonder that state and federal Labor governments are so incredibly keen to pour money into these industries and not effectively regulate them to stop animal cruelty. It's well documented that the gambling and agriculture industries donate millions to both major parties, and it's not just cash donations. MPs, including the Minister for Communications, the member for Greenway, who is largely responsible for the regulation of the gambling industry at a federal level, have taken free event tickets from gambling company Tabcorp, including to the Melbourne Cup.

Labor needs to do so much better on animal welfare at both the state and federal levels. It needs to shut down these industries and provide a real plan for workers to retrain and transition to other sectors. Until it does, the blood of animal cruelty is on the hands of the federal and state Labor governments.

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