Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that the industry is in terminal decline, and, if people in this place really care about the farmers and don't want to be just using the farmers to score cheap political points in this place, then they would get behind helping the industry to pivot, for the farmers to change the mix on their farm and to change the practices on their farm so that, rather than crashing into the end of the industry with no preparation, under the government's plan they have four years to slowly transition across and be ready for the future.

I don't make this point lightly, but it seems to me that the opposition—and, in particular, the National Party members—are desperate for some issue to latch onto to look like they're fighting for farmers. But the reality is that, by fighting for the farmers on this issue, what they're doing is letting the farmers down by preventing or slowing down their transition to an alternative mix of farming on the property.

One of the most bizarre claims by the opposition is that only a minority of people want reform. This is a crazy proposition. In fact, polling conducted by McCrindle research in May 2023 found that 71 per cent of Western Australians supported the phase-out, including 69 per cent of Western Australians in rural and regional areas of the state. So it's not a case of how many signatures are on a petition; it's about proper research done by proper research companies which are finding that almost three-quarters of Western Australians—almost 70 per cent of Western Australians in rural and regional areas—want this trade done away with. National polling also conducted by McCrindle research in 2022 placed support for the phase-out across the whole country at 78 per cent. In other words, this is a trade that is not only systemically cruel and not in Australia's economic best interest but has very low levels of support. I'm delighted and I'll give credit where it is due. Here's an issue where the federal government are actually in step with the wishes of the vast majority of Australians, and I applaud them for that.

I will say to the opposition that there are two claims that have been made in various members' contributions that do have merit at face value. I want to dwell on those for a moment. There is the point that some people in the Middle East want live sheep for cultural or religious reasons. I agree. That is an entirely valid point to make. But to suggest that not selling sheep to those people is going to break the back of our sheepmeat export industry is patent nonsense. Less than two per cent of Australia's sheepmeat exports are live sheep. I make the point that, if these people are going to be provided with live animals, why on earth would they come from just about the furthest place on the planet and have to endure just about the longest sea voyage that any animals could have to endure? What about those people sourcing their stock from Spain, Romania or other nearby countries that, as best I can tell, don't have animal welfare standards worse than Australia and are much closer, ensuring that the journey that those suffering animals go on is much shorter?

The other point made by the opposition—and I see face-value merit in this—is that customers will just get their live sheep from somewhere else. I offended honourable members in this place recently when I likened that to the drug dealers' defence. I wasn't calling the members of the opposition drug dealers, but we all know that that is the defence used by drug dealers: 'If they don't get the drugs from us, they'll get them from somewhere else.' I don't buy that. We need to, as a country, act with integrity, do the right thing and set an example for the rest of the world about what is the right thing.

If we want to genuinely get behind our primary producers and grow their exports to the rest of the world, then we need to do everything we can do to foster our reputation as a clean, ethical primary producer. That's so if you buy anything from Australia then it has been produced in the best country in the world, to the best standards in the world, and it has been produced with real integrity. That's what will grow our primary production—not by being seen on the world stage as a pariah which continues to send animals virtually to the other side of the planet in some of the most shocking conditions imaginable. I applaud the government for pushing through with this; I know it isn't easy. Yes, I want the ban to be in place sooner and, yes, I do want to shut down the life beef cattle export trade. I do—and I'll turn my mind do that now and keep campaigning on that. It is a difficult policy area for reform, so I will applaud the government. And I won't be moving any amendments, even though I'd like to see a shutdown sooner than four years.

The bottom line is that the live export trade is systemically cruel. That anyone would come into this place and dispute that beggars belief. They either haven't been paying attention or they are trying to fool people who might be listening in. It isn't in Australia's best economic interests. Surely we would do better to raise these sheep and the beef cattle here, and to process them in Australia? We already have a lot of spare capacity in our abattoirs. And where we don't have enough capacity to process these sheep, then we should build capacity. And if we have trouble getting workers for these abattoirs, then we should work out how to fill those jobs—there's an important role for government into the future. And the trade has little public support; as I said, the research by McCrindle Research put support for a phase-out at 78 per cent, nationally.

I say to phase it out because history shows that the fundamental problems in the industry can't be remedied. You just can't get numbers on these vessels so low as to achieve genuine animal welfare and for those voyages to be profitable. They will always be overcrowded as far as animal welfare goes. Remember the filth, remember the suffering and remember the barbaric conditions that we've seen in media revelations over recent years. It's not a luxury cruise liner, as the opposition would have us believe—no. I make the point again: the only way to end cruelty is to end the trade, full stop.

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