Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024, and I certainly will not be supporting this bill. We've heard the last two speakers, and their whole speeches were dripping in sanctimony and ideology, but I'm here to offer the real story and the realism. I've been very fortunate to be on two committees in parliament. I'm on the joint agriculture committee and I'm also on the coalition ag committee, so I've had the opportunity to go across to Western Australia, to talk to sheep farmers and to have a good look around. So I don't get my information off the back of a cornflakes packet like some of the people do. I'm a farmer by trade, and I get to be able to see and feel the real story.

During my last visit to WA, I toured the MV Dareen, which is a live sheep ship, and I toured that with export manager Paul Keenan from Livestock Shipping Services. It was really interesting to go through that ship and do it from start to finish. He took my tour at late notice, because no-one actually knew that I was going to go there, so nothing was set up. It was exactly as it is. I went aboard the ship, and the bottom couple of layers actually have cattle on the bottom. We've heard from the honourable member for Clark, who said that he's happy to get the live cattle industry killed off as well and not just the sheep industry. I just wonder: is that the cunning plan for those opposite? Is it sheep first, and then is the live cattle industry going to be killed off as well?

I know, in my electorate of Dawson, how they've killed off the gillnets. About 90 fishermen, not to mention the auxiliary businesses, have lost all their business. You can just see the modus operandi here—how it seems to be one primary industry after another facing the axe.

But let's go back to the ship. When you go on the ship, there are cattle on the bottom couple of rows, and then you go into the live sheep decks. They have the live sheep pens on the side, nice open walkways as you go through, sheep in the middle, walkways again and then sheep on the side. And all the sheep are divided up. In each pen there's 30 per cent space, so there's plenty of room for all the sheep to move around within those pens. There's also a hospital pen on there. In case any of the sheep get crook or they're not feeling so well, they're taken from their pen and put in the hospital pen to be nursed back to health. There's ventilation on the top. You can't feel it quite as much because it's open air, so you haven't got a vacuum, but when you go down within the ship you can actually feel the air ventilation going through. This is the lived experience. This is actually what happens and is the real story.

Food and water are delivered to the sheep. Every single pen has feeders across it and water going through it. All the sheep are constantly monitored. People are walking through them. They have vets. Even the captain, who I met on the ship, takes a personal interest in that because he knows, as does the crew, that to have successful outcomes and successful voyages you have to have happy and healthy sheep. If they don't then they don't have a job. Pure self-interest makes them do the best possible job they can.

This is Paul's business model. He bought these sheep. He's got a feedlot, so he fattened the sheep up a little bit more. He made sure they were nice and strong and ready for the voyage. Then he loaded them onto the ship. When they come off the ship they go into another feedlot and then get sold for processing. Let's just have a look at that. If you've got a business, and your business model is to have happy and healthy sheep, wouldn't you do every single thing possible to make sure that those sheep are healthy and looked after? I certainly would, because that's how you make money in the real world.

People were talking about temperature. Now they only send the sheep in the cooler times of the year. They have learnt what the best possible time is to send sheep, and that's what they do. That is real animal welfare. But don't just take my word for it. Dr Holly Ludeman, a renowned vet, provided this evidence when I was on the joint ag committee. The success rate of the sheep is now 99.85 per cent. So they're actually safer and better off when they're on the ship than when they're in the paddock. They actually have problems when they're in the paddock as well. I suppose it's like cars. When they're driving down the road, every now and again they have an accident. Some things do go wrong. But, with the live sheep trade, when they're on the ship, they're looked after exceptionally well.

When we were over there, I talked to the farmers. A lot of these farmers have been on the land for three, four, five generations—one for up to six generations. They are really concerned about their livelihoods and their welfare.

I heard some of the members of the Greens and the crossbench talking about transition. Some of the farmers said to me: 'Andrew, we can't transition. Our land is not suitable for this. Our land is suitable for sheep. We can't grow crops. The soil type is not in the right condition that it needs to be in.' These farmers are actually hurting. I know we're talking a lot about sheep and their welfare, but let's digress a little bit and talk about farmers' welfare. Are we concerned about how farmers are and how their mental health is? Are we concerned about how they've got to go home and explain to their kids, 'We're going to have to walk off the land here because it doesn't work'? Let's think about their mental health.

There were 1,300 people in a rally in Perth, and thousands of people attended the hearing in Muresk, telling their stories. They're not just stories that have been made up on the back of a cornflakes packet. These are real people and real people's livelihoods. I'd like to read an open letter from a sheep farmer: 'We have been sheep farming for 46 years and haven't sent a sheep on a boat for over 25 years, but I would like to know that that is still an option. They used to say that Australia rode on the sheep's back. This is true, but there are many things that keep us prosperous. Wool and sheep are seen as valuable commodities, so much so that in the 1980s and 90s our government backed reserve price schemes were introduced. This created an oversupply, and as a result over four million bales of wool were stockpiled, because alternatives like cotton and synthetics were more affordable—a lesson learned that market dictates the price. The solution to this was another government backed scheme called the flock reduction scheme, which involved sheep farmers rounding up their youngest breeding ewes, digging a hole and euthanising them to receive $6 per head in compensation. I never participated, but many did—another bad policy.

Today's debate is different. From the dark days of the tragic Awassi, our sheep industry has imposed its own restrictions to achieve a goal that the world is proud of in animal welfare standards, without government intervention. Why step in and ban an industry that is progressive and expanding ethically? Mr Watt is quoted as saying that 70 per cent of Australians are against live export. I do recall a referendum around that number, but that was certainly not with regard to live export. I ask that you people in government think seriously about opposing this legislation based on the facts I've given.'

That's signed Vanessa O'Brien from Pingelly, WA—an accurate estimate from the lady that handed me that letter.

We have heard from the crossbench again that the trade is decreasing. It has over a long period of time, but in the last couple of years it has been increasing. That's what happens when you have market forces. Some things go down and then up, but now we're in an upward trend. If it is so bad and we're going to lose it anyway, why not let the market forces take their course? Let them sort it out.

We also heard some heartfelt pleas from local government, mayors and counsellors, and they said: 'This is going to decimate our shires and decimate our region. All the businesses are going to be affected, the farmers. It's going to affect schools. The schools will be closing, and it's going to cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.' The transition I think is $107 million or something. They said that is a pittance. That will not even touch the sides. Plus there's no modelling on how that $107 million is going to work, but that's a little bit of a side note.

International reputation is another one. What does this say to our people over in the Middle East that we are currently serving with the live export—you're not good enough to eat our sheep now? They will all have to go and buy that sheep from someone else, someone who doesn't have the same standards as us. In the whole animal welfare debate, is a sheep not a sheep not a sheep across the whole world? If you're looking for animal welfare, why not support the Australian industry, which actually has the best standards in the world? Would it be just because of cheap political pointscoring? Would it be for those opposite? I can see in question time I think the Labor-Greens coalition is in a little bit of trouble. There's a bit of argy-bargy backwards and forwards. Is that what it is? I'm not exactly sure, but we need to make the decision on facts and we need to make sure we are supporting our farmers.

There are different types of sheep as well. You have lambs, and as they grow a bit older they grow into hoggets, two-teeth sheep, and then you have mutton. People say we'll just process these sheep locally. The fact of it is, as farmers have told me, these sheep they're actually sending to live export aren't suitable to be processed locally. They have no commercial value. Again, this is a trade that underpins and provides some certainty not for just the meat industry but for the wool industry, because there are sheep that they can shear five or six times and then put on a boat and actually make some money out of them.

The good news is a coalition government will reinstate the live sheep export industry. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our farmers, support our farmers and make sure we're there for them. There are so many businesses involved: the truck drivers and the shearers. Let's talk about the shearers—isn't that where the Labor Party started, in Barcaldine, with the famous knowledge tree? Now, all of a sudden, the Labor government is turning its back on those very shearers and the workers. When I was a kid we were told that the Labor Party looks after the workers. But no—not anymore. They just want to look after their votes in the cities and their little deals that they've done with their Greens counterparts.

Let's be honest: the inquiry we did was quick. It was quick and dirty, to be honest. Two or three weeks, then bang! We had to go over and get the information, and there were a whole lot of submissions that weren't even fully analysed. So what I'm calling for is to make sure that we have a Senate inquiry. This one needs to be shelved and we should have a Senate inquiry, where these people's livelihoods and where the live sheep trade industry can actually have their say and have their information fully analysed and treated with respect and dignity so that we can keep that vital industry going. And, for heaven's sake, let's make sure that we keep the live cattle trade open and thriving as well, and not listen to some of our members from the crossbench.

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