David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

LESPIE () (): The Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023 represents a significant change in the role of the federal Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports. It was established under the last coalition administration as a response to the Moss report. What is proposed in this legislation is not bracket creep; it's huge constitutional creep. It's taking over or inserting the Commonwealth regulator that looks after export of live animals into the animal welfare row that states already do.

Many of the initiatives that this bill purports to expand are already being done. Enabling monitoring; investigating and reporting on the implementation of animal welfare: these are already occurring. The Australian Standards for Export of Livestock currently includes monitoring and reporting requirements, as is promoting improvements in the development of that standard, the ASEL. They are already reviewed and updated regularly by the regulator.

It also says it's going to expand the effectiveness of Commonwealth administrative systems and the effectiveness of reporting relating to animal welfare and exports. The current inspector-general role does this already. Providing the office is independent and has complete discretion—hello, it is set up as a statutory body, independent from the government, already—and so on and so forth. It also expands the review powers and responsibilities of the Inspector-General into animal welfare obligations of state and territory governments. I wouldn't be surprised if the states appeal this legislation because the constitutional head of powers rests with the states.

I'm very concerned about a few other things. Some of the previous speakers talked about the live export trade as animal cruelty, as an existential problem. Australia has the best animal export industry in the world, second to none. We are feeding protein to nations, to the Middle East and to Asia, that can't grow enough animals to feed their nations. It would be a tragedy if this industry was to shut down by being regulated to extinction. Some of the earlier speakers are against the racehorse industry, the greyhound industry, and they claim they want to shut down these industries. My goodness! The facts of the matter are that we have a very well-regulated system, from the yards through to the export abattoirs and on to the live export ships. They have vets on board. They're monitored.

Live exports have the lowest mortality rates ever. In 2021, live cattle exports had a mortality rate of 0.08 per cent. If you're running a big grazing herd, you will probably have that same mortality in the paddock, for goodness sake. And it's even lower—in 2020, it was 0.006 per cent of animals sent to export had concerns raised about their welfare. If you look at a couple of thousand sheep on a sheep farm, you will have much more than that. Natural damage, roaming the paddocks out in 40-degree heat or in minus 10-degree winters—these things happen in the paddock. I don't know any other country, like those in Africa that export up to the Middle East, that put a vet on board the boat, that have temperature control on the boat because of the expose of all the stuff that happened about five or six years ago.

On constitutional grounds, this is total overreach. We have a good regulatory system. There is obviously so much more to the agenda in trying to shut down a legitimate trade which our trade neighbours rely on for their food and which provides income and industry for Australians—farmers and graziers—who look after their animals well. The reality of life is, if you're going to have lamb chops, there has to be an abattoir to put down animals. It has been since civilisation that man has relied on sheep and cattle meat for our survival and for food. If people don't want to eat it, no-one is making them, but it is a genuine thing.

It's history repeating itself. This will have a huge knock-on effect on the sheep industry across Australia if the live export trade is shut down by overregulation, because all those thousands of sheep that go to export will then flood the market—hey presto—which is exactly what happened in 2011. It is salt in the wounds of the National Farmers Federation and the people that claimed compensation for shutting down the live cattle trade back in 2011 to see it happen all over again in slow motion. Many people's businesses will be ruined because the price they receive for their stock will drop precipitously. In Senate estimates last week, it was revealed that the government offered $250 million to the whole industry, which had billions wiped out just by administrative edict back in 2011. Now they've been given less than one month to accept the small—much lower than what they claimed—settlement of only $215 million, when the industry lost billions and people in the eastern states and the southern states had the price of their cattle drop precipitously. It is really important that people realise you're dealing with the animals—we have a safe system—but you're also dealing with people's lives, industries and incomes. So I cannot support this bill.

See this speech in context