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

For those listening it is unusual to have such a fiery debate on matters of public interest. They generally are quite self-serving. But in this case, this is a matter of deep significance to Western Australian farmers, because our farming and agriculture sector is a critical part of the Western Australian economy. Every Western Australian is deeply connected to the farming sector. We have family, we have friends, and it is a place in which we visit and spend our time, so this really does matter and it is important that we have this robust debate.

But it is also important that we keep the facts on the table. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of rhetoric and a lot of misinformation, not just from those opposite, but by leaders within the farming bodies such as the National Farmers' Federation, who are seeing this as an opportunity to wedge a government that is doing its best to actually work with the farming community and actually help them succeed.

The reality of the live sheep export market is it has been in decline. It is 90 per cent less than it was just a few years ago. We have a sheep industry in Western Australia that is valued at over $4.6 billion and the live sheep export component is $77 million. That is still a significant amount of money to the very different little communities across the wheatbelt that it supports. It is money that we don't want to see lost. The reality is that we don't want a situation in Western Australia which is different to that on the east coast, which stopped live sheep trading many years past and got into processing sheepmeat domestically—because that's where the value is. They got into that years ago; they saw the writing on the wall.

But Western Australia is a bit more unique, because there is such a lack of competition. For 10 years, when those opposite had the chance to correct the imbalance between suppliers—the farmers, who are price takers—and the supermarket chains and the processors, they actually did nothing. They did nothing because they do take the farmers for granted. They think, 'They'll vote for us; we don't need to be concerned about what they think.' But we actually do care. We appreciate what they give to us city folk—the 'city elite' and whatnot else insults those opposite refer to us as. We do care, because they're the people who keep the food on the table.

But they aren't getting a fair price; farmers are not getting a fair price. And it's to this end that the transition package the Labor government is proposing supports the farmers—so they actually come out better from this. The industry is in decline; it will go the same way that it has gone in other countries—and particularly as we've seen on the east coast. We want to make sure now and over the next four years that we get the processing capability and get the feedlots covered so they can take on sheep when, ordinarily, they would be turned away—and also that we increase capacity with cold storage facilities within the abattoirs. They're overbooked presently, which basically means that the farmers get an even a weaker price because there's too much supply. So we need to increase the capacity of those abattoirs. Equally, there needs to be competition between the abattoirs, because there isn't at the moment. At the moment, farmers are left wanting; they haven't been adequately represented or able to fight to ensure that funding is directed towards improving manufacturing capacity for multiple gradings and so there's a choice about where they go.

We need to make sure that farmers take advantage of the offer extended by veterinarians to work on cross genetics. This is to ensure that merino genetics—obviously, produced predominantly for wool, which we value—are taken account of so that they're also suitable for processed meat and the mutton market, which is significant. We heard, loud and clear, from the various meat industry representatives about market growth, particularly for mutton, in China and also in the Middle East. That market obviously loves the meat, because it's purchasing it live—but only four per cent, mind. The global live sheep export market provided by Western Australia is four per cent of the global live sheep trade. We've heard about the huge impact it has, but it actually isn't: the majority of meat they purchase is from a supermarket. The growth undertaken on the east coast is fantastic and significant, and Western Australian farmers have been missing out all this time.

We want to change that. We want to look after those communities which look after us, and we want to ensure that we spend the next four years in skilling up more people to work in those abattoirs and making sure that there are washdown facilities, because there will be more truck movements as they go from feedlot to farms, abattoirs and so forth, rather than just to a ship. There is so much more opportunity that comes with this change. But change is tough, and we have farmers' backs, because that is what Labor stands for.

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