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

What we're doing is taking responsibility for managing a transition that's been under way for 20 years. Under the previous government, in the period that covered their time on this side of the chamber between 2012 and 2022 more or less—they were in government from 2013 to 2022—the live sheep trade declined by 75 per cent in that period alone. The sheep flock in WA remained exactly the same at 13½ million head, and the wool output at 65 million tonnes remained exactly the same in that period. There was a 75 per cent decline on their watch in a trade that has declined by more than 90 per cent.

I'm very proud of Western Australian agriculture. It is a vital part of the national economy. It's a vital part of my state's cultural and social fabric. It's strong today; it will remain strong. Last year, we set sheepmeat export records. Meat and Livestock Australia have said that they expect that to grow in 2024. The fact is that agriculture changes over time. Agriculture improves over time. That's the history of Australian agriculture, and that's the approach of Australian farmers who always want to be more productive, more effective, more humane and more sustainable. That is the story of Australian agriculture, and it continues to be the story, and that's why the live sheep export trade is on its way out. It has been on its way out for more than 20 years. We are doing the responsible thing which governments do, and that is to help manage change—not to bury your head in the sand, not to tell people stories, not to be in denial about the past and not to be in denial about the future but to look the facts squarely in the eye and take responsibility for managing change.

Our largest market is China. Last year, of chilled and frozen exports to China, lamb was up 30 per cent and mutton was up 70 per cent. In our second-largest market, the Middle East and North Africa, sheepmeat was up 63 per cent. These are record sheepmeat exports from Australia, the largest sheepmeat exporter in the world. Why? Because we've seen a 400 per cent increase in chilled and frozen and humanely, Australian processed sheepmeat of higher value—and more jobs—out of this country at the same time that the live sheep export trade has dropped off a cliff. It has declined by 90 per cent on its own terms. Why? Because it's not the way the world's going. It doesn't make sense, and unfortunately it has always involved animal suffering, and that animal suffering continues.

Since 2018, when the previous government were dragged to make changes that the Moss review and the McCarthy review said had to be made, 60 per cent of all voyages that have had independent observers have involved unacceptable levels of heat stress, and heat stress is now the accepted measure of animal welfare in this country. That is the case today. Anyone who says that the trade is vital is wrong. Anyone who says that the trade is a significant part of Western Australian agriculture, when it's worth less than one per cent of Western Australian agriculture—it's worth less than 0.1 per cent of Australian agriculture. Anyone who makes that claim is wrong. Anyone who says that the industry has overcome the intrinsic, chronic and occasionally acute animal welfare problems is wrong. And those opposite know it.

When those opposite came to government, what did they do? They got rid of the animal welfare advisory council, they disbanded the animal welfare unit within the department of agriculture and they abandoned our proposition to create an independent inspectorate of animal welfare. And what happened? In 2017 there was the Awassi Express, just the latest in a parade, really, of animal welfare atrocities that the Australian community will not accept. They will not accept it. We don't allow our animal welfare standards and the treatment of Australian animals to be set by anyone else but us, and the Australian community does not take the view that some might take that there's a sliding scale that makes animal cruelty acceptable at a certain price. The Australian community will not accept that, and they don't have to, because this industry has been going through this transition for a long period of time.

We remain the largest exporter of sheepmeat in the world, and that will only grow because chilled and frozen boxed exports are rising and all of the markets that we export to are taking that product. Kuwait is cited by those opposite. It is the largest importer of live export product, but they already take more than twice as much in processed meat. That is the case for Kuwait. That's the way the world's going. We are responsibly managing that change.

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