Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024. Change is tough. It brings uncertainty, anxiety and fear. Farmers are living and working in an environment that is in a constant state of change—the weather, the market, the rules and the price. There is so little that farmers have control over. They rely on good farming practices, discipline to rise out of bed before dawn, skills to fix and repair, and relationships to see their mates and families through the tough times and the great. I'm not saying this from a theoretical perspective. I am saying it from a lived experience—from my grandparents settling on country in Carnamah and Cadoux in the WA Wheatbelt, to my sister building on the success of generations with her husband and family on their farm in York. York is where I grew up. It's a beautiful farming community representing so much and responsible for so much of our cereal crops—wheat, barley and oats—and grazing sheep for meat, of course, but particularly for their merino wool.

I've seen firsthand the toll that farming takes on farmers, families and towns when things out of their control are difficult. I've also seen how those same communities are resilient and rise to every challenge, adopting new technologies, new genetics and new advances in agronomics to create more food and more wealth not just for those living in these small towns but for those in our cities, our state and nations abroad. So when I was asked to temporarily cover for my colleague and great friend the member for Gilmore on the House Standing Committee on Agriculture to inquire into the banning of the live sheep trade, I willingly took up the opportunity because I knew the change being proposed in this bill could be tough without understanding the impact and consequences. Change needs to come, but we need to ensure that farmers are best positioned to not just deal with the change but come out stronger for it.

Western Australia has 18 per cent of Australia's sheep flock, or around 12.6 million sheep, and last year Western Australia exported fewer than 600,000 of those animals live—live sheep export still exists only in WA. Over the last 20 years the value of that export has declined dramatically, by about 90 per cent, to the point where it is now worth about $77 million. The government's budgeted transition package exceeds this amount, and our committee has recommended the consideration of more.

In other comparable countries such as the UK and New Zealand, and even here on the east coast, live exports were phased out without a transition package and with either much shorter transition periods or none at all, as it was deemed commercially unviable as more productive markets emerged and the farmers simply moved on. But I know $77 million is still a significant sum for the communities from Dowerin to Wagin through to Esperance in the south. It supports the vibrancy of the towns, shops and sports clubs, and the $77 million provides the certainty needed for the shearing teams to schedule their move across the Wheatbelt, for the truck drivers to schedule their pick-ups to port, and, critically, for farmers to know they have a market to sell to when the weather is not optimal for wool or where the processors are overbooked.

With this in mind, I was determined to hear the perspectives of those directly impacted—farmers, shearers, processors, abattoir workers, truck drivers, shearers, vets—and from those many people across the nation who want to see Australia stand for better welfare of animals. The volume of engagement was enormous. There were over 13,000 contributions to the inquiry on the bill over the past few weeks. I note most of those submissions support the passage of this bill, but I'm not diminishing in any way the weight of those who oppose it; I will return to this shortly.

This engagement is on top of the engagement undertaken by the independent panel consulting on the phase-out of live sheep exports by sea, comprised of the chair, Phillip Glyde; the Hon. Warren Snowdon; Ms Sue Middleton, a local to the Wheatbelt area in WA; and Ms Heather Neil. The panel met with over 2,000 individuals, held 96 stakeholder meetings and received more than 800 submissions and 3,300 survey responses across the nine months between March and October 2023.

At the recent committee hearings both here in Canberra and at the Muresk ag college in the WA Wheatbelt, just outside of Northam, we heard from people on all aspects of agriculture, business, trade and civil society. In listening to the witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry, these are the themes that came through for me. Firstly, there was a unanimous agreement that the welfare of all sheep being shipped was paramount, and that since more than 2,400 sheep died of heat stress on the Awassi Express voyage in August 2017 significant improvements had been achieved that have seen a much reduced average mortality rate in recent years; in 2022 the average was 0.14 per cent. The second theme was there was not an agreement on the extent that morbidity issues experienced for the weeks on board are welfare issues of concern. Concerns were raised around starvation of sheep, the ship motion, ammonia exposure, heat stress, stocking density, unhygienic environments from standing in faeces, unnatural lighting, scabby mouth and respiratory infections. The heat stress is particularly problematic. Ammonia builds up on board, creating humidity which leads to the wet bulb temperature increasing beyond the heat stress threshold of the sheep, which leads to suffering.

The most recent shipments that departed for Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the last few weeks sailed into conditions where temperatures were even exceeding 52 degrees. Hundreds of humans died in these last couple of weeks. We don't yet know the fate of the sheep on board because there's no independent vet, unfortunately, at this point, due to the security issues in the region. It is worth also noting that the temperatures involved in the Awassi Express tragedy were in the mid-30s. Therefore, on this matter, I've accepted the advice of the independent vets and believe morbidity is a welfare concern. This is coupled with the reality that Australians hold the view, as evidenced by our national processing practices, that our sheep should be killed humanely. Sadly, those arriving into the Middle East do not experience such a fate.

The third theme I heard was that opportunities to keep the sheep in WA and process them domestically are real, as is evidenced by the success here on the east coast. Many witnesses spoke about their concerns that a farm would be destocked because of a failure to find a market and that then their towns would suffer significantly. However, there was recognition that, if the numbers were held, then towns—particularly those that support abattoirs—would in fact grow. Matthew Journeaux, federal secretary of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, said:

Regardless of whether those animals are exported live or are processed locally, all the jobs up to the sheep being put on a boat or being processed remain the same. The only difference is, if the truck turns right to the ports, the live export sheep are loaded with a handful of stockmen, and an Australian vet accompanies their journey; if the truck turns left and takes those animals to a processing facility, it immediately employs between 500 and 800 people directly and many more in industries that support the processing plant. Those wages are spent in the local community, and flow-on benefits are significant.

But the current limitations on WA's abattoirs having sufficient skilled labour, regional accommodation, feedlots and cold room capacity and, critically, ensuring that the processors themselves are competitive and that, by extension, the supermarkets can offer the farmers a fair farmgate price are of paramount importance to first resolve.

The fourth theme was that the confidence in and the prospects of new markets to displace the live export market of some 500,000 sheep per annum are good, particularly on the back of new trade agreements finalised by this government with the UK and India, and perhaps in the EU and UAE, plus the growth in demand for mutton to China, which, as Mr Patrick Hutchinson from the Australian Meat Industry Council indicated, would be able to absorb the greater expected quantity as a result of this change. He stated that 'the global mutton market is performing exceptionally strongly and, obviously, Australia is the biggest exporter of that'. With trade into South-East Asia forecast to grow by around five per cent year on year, Mr Hutchinson continued by saying that, particularly for mutton trade, there were places like Malaysia et cetera and the UK for higher value product, and that we do have an opportunity in India.

Just yesterday, the Australian agricultural analysis firm Mercado noted that the current market for processed sheepmeat is strong. Both lamb and mutton volumes are well above what they were a year ago and for five-year average levels for the year to May, with the US and the Middle East soaking up extra supply. Current lamb exports are 25 per cent higher, year on year, for the January to May period, sitting just shy of 155,000 tonnes. Mutton exports sit 14 per cent above year-ago levels for January to May and 33 per cent more than the five-year trend, with the month of May also a record for mutton. The Middle East is a demand driver for both markets.

The current strength in the market for processed sheepmeat and the prospects for growth for many of our export partners mean this is the best time for WA to commence the transition to increase the capacity of processing facilities. Mecardo notes that this growth and the multitude of destinations will support processing levels and help protect the farmgate price from large supply. The confidence and growth in the processing sector is already evident too, with V&V Walsh investing $50 million in a new cold storage facility, and Wammco, a WA farming cooperative, committed to building a new facility and increasing capacity by half a million head by early 2026. And, as Countryman reported in November last year, the newly refurbished Geraldton meat exports facility aims to supply chilled and frozen meat products to customers in Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East. Group executive director, Mr Syed Ghazaly, said the company had customers lined up in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, and he would aim to process the maximum 2½ thousand head per day of mostly chilled and frozen sheep, mutton and lamb for those markets.

From the themes to the report, the committee made three recommendations: first, that this bill be passed—it is time; second, the government should consider making additional funding available to support the transition. In my view, following discussions with people like Ms Bonnie Skinner, CEO of Sheep Producers Australia, following the hearings, the focus over the next four years must be on addressing the structural competition deficiencies in Western Australia in order to achieve a fairer price for farmers.

During the committee hearings, due to the variability in fluctuations in price, it was not possible to land on a single dollar value that needs to be bridged for the price achieved by live export by sea. However, there seems to be consensus that there is around a nominal 15 per cent increase potentially between the specification for mutton and what goes on the boat. The goal in the transition is to create competition and markets so that farmers get that fairer price for the 11 per cent for the approximate 500,000 head that are currently shipped by sea. What needs to change to enable more of the 29 licensed abattoirs in WA to be certified to international export? Of the eight current export-accredited abattoirs to process sheep and lamb, what needs to change so they can do multiple gradings on site so the processors can compete with each other for the different sizes and aged sheep?

We have heard about the success of the East Coast on air freighting sheep to Southeast-Asia; however, we can see the volumes have not returned to pre-COVID levels and the air trade is dominated by East Coast farmers. I think there is an opportunity for Western Australia to fill that gap.

We heard from experts like Dr Melanie Latter from Australian Veterinary Association, who spoke about the options around altering the genetics of the flocks so they will be more suitable for meat markets; for instance, the dual-purpose merino. She also said that veterinarians can assist producers to alter feeding and nutrition programs, summer cropping, containment feeding on farm and many other mechanisms so they are able to finish off the animal so they're suitable for processing industries.

We heard about the $4½ billion value in sheepmeat exports. Sheepmeat consumption is forecast to grow by seven per cent domestically and 15 per cent globally. Over the past eight years WA has generally sent a higher proportion of sheepmeat exports than the national average, yet we have not seen a return to those pre-COVID levels, so, again, it is an area in which gains can be made.

I call on all those who will sit around the table to shape that transition package with all of these promising realities in mind to ensure that the value in growth is not just left to the benefit of our supermarket giants, export agents and processors. A mechanism or model is needed to ensure farmers share in that value and are not priced gouged. To this end, a reminder to those opposite and to farmers around the country listening to this: it is a Labor government that is taking action to address the imbalance of bargaining power between supermarkets and suppliers. We are making the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct mandatory to crack down on anticompetitive behaviour and to get a fairer deal for the farmers and families.

The third recommendation of the report is that the government will continue to work with the WA government on the transition, and we will. To end: I thank all those on the committee, the secretariat in particular, but mostly all those who appeared before the inquiry for your genuine care and concern to ensure farmers come out on top, and to all those who have written and spoken with me as well.

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