Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very glad to make a contribution to this debate, which is prompted by the latest animal welfare crisis brought to us by the live sheep animal export trade. I thank the member for Clark for bringing it forward. I acknowledge the consistency of his interest in animal welfare.

The motion goes to two matters. It goes to the crisis involving the MV Bahijah, which still sits off the coast of Fremantle, and it goes to the challenge of managing the end of what has been for a long time a marginal, unnecessary and inherently harmful trade: the live sheep export industry.

Right now, as the member for Clark has noted, there are more than 10,000—12,000 or 13,000—sheep and some few thousand cattle on board the MV Bahijah, approved to travel to Jordan via the Red Sea. The exporters themselves made a decision that it wasn't viable and that the contingency plan that they had in place wasn't viable either. As a result of that they were forced to come back to Western Australia. Those animals have been on that vessel now for 33 days, and they were on that vessel in heatwave conditions last week. In a few days time, apparently, Perth will experience 40-degree temperatures again, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And the longest live sheep voyage to the Middle East in calendar year 2022 was for 23 days.

The length of confinement on board these vessels is a matter of animal welfare, and every sensible person in every part of this House knows that we have rules for how long animals can be confined in lots of circumstances—like how long they can be confined on trucks—and, rightly, we ascribe animal welfare impacts to the confinement of animals on metal ships at sea. Sometimes they're forced to stand in their own waste and they're always forced to endure the motion of ship and the other impacts, including heat stress. People over there talk about mortality and people on the other side talk about whether or not animals put on weight. I tell you what: human beings on death row put on weight, so you're not going to tell me that a living creature, provided with a huge amount of food, which is putting on weight is the only measure of whether or not that animal is suffering. You're not going to tell me that animals that have spent their entire lives and their existence as a species on land enjoy being on stinking metal ships for weeks at a time. They do not. All the evidence about heat stress and other measures of animal welfare show that animals suffer in those conditions.

These animals have been on that ship for 33 days; that's already 10 days longer than the longest voyage in 2022. The proposition from the exporters was that they would be re-exported for a voyage that would probably take another 33 days. That would have made it the longest voyage of its kind in Australian history. On previous occasions when voyages of that duration have been attempted, we have seen animal welfare atrocities. That's the nature of this trade. So it's very welcome that the independent regulator has made the decision not to approve the re-export of those animals. The best course of action now is for them to come off the ship as soon as possible—for them to come off the ship and no longer suffer from those conditions.

The second issue that the member for Clark raised is about the sensible, long-awaited transition out of the trade altogether. To pick up on what the member for North Sydney said: it's just not fair, or true, to say that the government has done nothing. We committed to the phasing out of this trade. That should have been done responsibly a long time ago by the former government. We're committed to doing it. Within weeks of the election, the minister for agriculture came to Western Australia and began the proper process to transition out. He began the meetings and he established the independent panel. The independent panel did its proper consultative work and they have now provided a report to the minister. Of course, in due course we expect that the minister will come forward with both a plan and a timetable to properly and responsibly transition out of a trade that is marginal, unnecessary and has always been inherently harmful. Nobody on that side can say that it hasn't been harmful, when they themselves put a moratorium in place to stop the trade during the course of the northern summer. Their own McCarthy review said that every time ships went during that period, unacceptable animal heat stress occurred. So they implemented the summer moratorium. Until they implemented the summer moratorium, of course, for year after year after year Australian animals had been subject to confinement and unacceptable heat stress—this was as determined by the review and the response was what they implemented. All of this rubbish about mortality and animals putting on weight—they know, and farmers know, it is rubbish. Those animals suffer and their suffering is intolerable. The Australian community won't accept it. In Western Australia, 70 per cent of people in metropolitan areas and 69 per cent in rural and regional areas want to see the trade come to an end.

And it's marginal. People have trouble with the word 'marginal'. How else would you describe an industry that has declined by more than 90 per cent from its peak? How else would you describe that industry? It is worth less than one per cent of WA agricultural exports, as the member for Clark said, less than 0.1 per cent of Australia's agricultural exports as a whole and less than two per cent of sheep meat exports. It is not necessary.

All the fearmongering about what would happen through the decline and ultimately the end of this trade has failed to come true. Between 2013 and 2023, that 10-year period alone, when the industry declined by more than 75 per cent, the sheep flock in Western Australia remained exactly the same at 14 million sheep. There was no decline in the Western Australian sheep flock when the live sheep trade declined by three-quarters. Wool production out of Western Australia in that same period, measure it in 2013, measure it in 2023. It did not decline at all over that period despite a 75 per cent decline in the live sheep export trade. All of this 'the roof is going to fall in', all of this 'it is an essential trade; we can never see this trade disappear' has failed to manifest in any of the ways in which people who support the industry claimed that it would. There has been no diminution in the size of the Western Australian sheep flock, no diminution in the quantity of wool exported and no noticeable difference economically in jobs or other broader economic impacts to the Western Australian sheep industry. In fact, in 2021, Western Australian wheat-sheep farms were noted as the most profitable farms of their kind on the globe, and that was after this industry had already diminished by up to 85 per cent.

So we are doing the responsible thing by managing out of an industry that is virtually defunct, that has produced animal welfare harm and, in some cases, acute animal welfare disasters, over and over again. Unfortunately, for the previous nine years, despite all those facts staring those opposite in the face, they did nothing. In fact, they made it worse. They reduced animal welfare regulation, they turned a blind eye and they were an apologist for some of the exporters and their outcomes, but not everyone on the other side, though.

The deputy Liberal leader, the member for Farrer in 2018 brought a private member's bill to end the live sheep trade. It was supported by the member for La Trobe and by the then member for Corangamite, who is now Senator Henderson in the other place. At that time, the deputy leader of the Liberal Party said that the live sheep trade is 'a trade in terminal decline'. The member for Farrer said the live sheep trade is 'an operating model built on the suffering of animals'. The deputy leader said, 'I think this trade in sheep is a shame and a stain on our international reputation.' And the current deputy leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Farrer, said, 'One thing I've learned after 17 years in parliament is when you believe you need to do something, you must do it and never take a backward step.'

Well, we know that this is a marginal, unnecessary and inherently harmful trade. All Australians know that. All of the scientific and economic evidence shows that. We change our practices in this country in respect of our high-quality, high-output and high-value agricultural sector as we learn and as we improve. There have been other aspects of primary production of enormous value to this country that have changed and improved over time, and we can pick many of them. We don't get eggs from battery hens anymore because we recognise that that was intolerably cruel. We don't need the live sheep trade. We are managing the end of that trade but we're doing it in a responsible way.

I hear what the member for Clarke is calling for. I want those animals to come of the MV Bahijah tomorrow. That is for the exporter to determine in consultation with the independent regulator, quite properly. I want to see the sensible end of the live sheep export trade as soon as possible. That is what we committed to, that is what the Albanese Labor government is delivering, and that is what the minister for agriculture is working on.

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