Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to give a voice in this parliament to literally hundreds of Hotham constituents who have written to me upset and angry at reports of Australian animals exported live to Gaza, who have been brutally tortured and mistreated. I want to read a couple of quotes from the letters I have received:

Australians are sick of seeing this horrific cruelty continuing year after year after year in an immoral industry that should have ended long ago.

Another quote:

I am sickened that this is STILL allowed to happen and nothing is being done to protect these animals from being exposed to hideous slaughter methods.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

The views of these Australians are legitimate and passionately held, and they deserve the consideration of this chamber—including the member for Bass if he would mind giving me a few minutes to give voice to hundreds of people in my electorate who want to be heard by this chamber. My constituents are calling for the suspension of the licence of the company that was responsible for these animals. Many of them in fact are calling for the end of the live export trade altogether. I simply want to ask to the Minister for Agriculture: what is he doing about this problem? There are protections in place for animal welfare in live exports, but the Minister for Agriculture must take action. Labor created what is called the ESCAS system, a policy that ensures that, as animals move through the supply chain, the company that is getting the commercial benefit from exporting them is still responsible for their welfare. ESCAS provides animals being exported from Australia the tightest protections that are available to animals anywhere in the world. ESCAS is good policy, but only if we can prove that it works.

Protecting animal welfare is in the best interests of industry. I know that and they know that too because I have met with them and I have discussed with them. I have reinforced in my meeting with industry that the biggest risk to the live export industry is losing the confidence of the public that they can ensure the fair and humane treatment of animals. And I say to industry that, every time there is an incident of this nature, the public loses more confidence in your ability to effectively operate in this area. You have to clean up your act.

To the people who have taken the time to write to me about this, I want to say that your activism is really having an impact. In a democracy, when large groups of people feel so passionately about an area of policy, it is absolutely right and proper that people in this parliament sit up and take action. Today I am giving voice in this parliament to the views of those people and asking the minister simply to use the laws, as he is responsible for doing, to take action on this matter. And I am asking industry directly. It is time that you cleaned up your act. There are only so many times that, as members of parliament, we can stand in this chamber and express confidence in the current system and then weeks and months later be back here again dealing with this absolutely unacceptable mistreatment of animals.