Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly! As the member for Forrest says, nobody—nobody will be there. So, for all the other sheep in different countries around the world, that's bad luck. If the industry falls and isn't as good, bad luck for them. To people that are emailing their senators or members in relation to Animal Australia's email list, what about all the other animals? If you love animals, you've got to be consistent. It's not just Australian animals; it's all animals around the world.

We all love to look at wildlife documentaries—David Attenborough and everything else. You see deforestation in some places. We love animals. In this industry, we're the best in the world. This is a real issue. The minister for agriculture, Senator Watt, said in his media release on 30 May 2024:

The legislation is the next step in the orderly and considered process to deliver on this election commitment to the Australian public …

Wow! The Albanese Labor government want to deliver on an election commitment! But what happened to your election commitments on stage 3 tax cuts, reducing electricity by $275 or not making changes to superannuation? They've broken every single one of them. The members opposite on the backbench that came in in 2022, who were elected under those promises, get up in here and make excuses as to why they had to break them. But, when it comes to live sheep exports, 'No, we have to do that,' despite the families that are going to suffer. The member for Canberra and every single one of them—watch the next member get up and say, 'It's only worth $77 million.' I can tell you $77 million goes a long way in local farming communities.

Imagine if I said to the member for Barker here, 'We're going to shut down, let's say, 77 businesses in your electorate.' What would happen if we said, 'We're going to shut down 77 businesses'? For $77 million, if you've got families that farm and they're all turning over a million dollars each—I don't know what the figures are exactly; it's probably a lot less than that—that's 77 individual businesses worth a million dollars that are gone. They're gone! They have no more income. What's going to happen? There are a lot of those businesses. They're going to pull their kids out of school. They're going to move out of that industry. They'll have to sell off their land for whatever it's worth. Where are the abattoirs here? What is the government actually doing? It's giving some sort of package, but why not support the industry better?

Your own party in Western Australia is against what you're doing. The Western Australian Labor Premier says no to this. The Western Australian state Labor members say no to this. There's no research and there are no facts here. Those opposite who are speaking are parroting the talking points. Get out and visit and understand what you're doing and the impact you're having. (Time expired)

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