Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table a story sent to me regarding generation Y on the live export trail.

Leave granted.

I would like to take the time I have left to talk about some of the contents of this story. Donal Sullivan and other young Territorians have just been to Indonesia and seen for themselves what is happening to our live cattle. Luke Bowen from the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association said that this story is one real account, a human story, which instils confidence in our next generation of farmers who are making a go of producing food; managing vast tracts of our country; and forging cultural, social and economic relationships in our region.

Donal Sullivan left Jakarta with a sense of confidence and hope. She says this hope was not only for her own future but that of her family and the northern Australian cattle industry, an industry still in crisis. Just 18 months ago Donal's world was about to be shattered. Donal was working with her sisters in the cattle yards at her family's cattle station 450 kilometres south of Darwin as the ABC's Four Corners program interviewed her dad, Rohan Sullivan, who was president of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association. The girls were working cattle in the yards, joking and exchanging jibes. What was about to follow with the airing of the ABC Four Corners program was to change her life, that of her family and that of the northern cattle industry.

She says her father, as head of an organisation whose members had the most invested and the most to lose, dropped everything at home to fight for the survival of an industry. From the night the program aired it seemed like the whole world stopped, paused and took a turn where all that had been normal no longer existed. In the months to follow, the family's operations struggled. Donal's mum, Sally, who has a long history in donating her time to the community including to the Isolated Children and Parents Association had to keep the business and family on track. Donal says, 'Dad was in Darwin, Canberra, Indonesia and when he was home he was working until all hours of the night and morning answering calls from concerned Australian cattle producers and animal activists who he thought needed to know the real facts of the real story.' Donal says she knows she and her siblings were shielded from much of what happened: the abusive threatening emails, letters, faxes and phone calls; and the excuse that it gave some Australians to be bigoted and racist, to vilify cattle families, Indonesians and Muslims.

Deputy Speaker, you would know, as a member of parliament, that we were inundated with a lot of emails and some of them have not been nice. Some of these families have been receiving these as well. Donal says the ignorance yet almighty righteousness that pervaded animal activists groups, politicians, one minor political party and many others highlighted a number of geographical, cultural and information divides.

Donal's family hosted two Indonesian students from eastern Java as part of an eight-week agricultural exchange program. The program was such a success and the relationships formed so strong that three weeks ago Donal set out from Darwin to go to Jakarta. Travelling with a small group of the industry's youngsters, Donal recounted the shock of being out of your depth and out of your comfort zone, the rigours of life and the resourcefulness of the Indonesians, the warmth and hospitality of her Indonesian hosts and the opportunity to experience a new culture. They visited farms and talked to farmers to understand how a country of 240 million people goes about feeding itself and the fact that many of the workers they met on the farms and feedlots earn about two dollars a day.

Donal says that she was hesitant and anxious about what they would find when they visited an Australian accredited Bandung abattoir with the other Gen-Ys. The atmosphere was tense. By the time the first animal walked up into the restraining box some of the tension had dissipated. The facility was not of the industrial scale of the Australian equivalent but it was quiet, calm and efficient. She said the process was fast, humane and efficient. Flying back to Darwin after a week in Indonesia was the biggest thing for her. Now she knows that there is a future, and she wants to go back again and see for herself— (Time expired)