Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a great pleasure last week to be back in the Pilbara and amongst that beautiful red landscape and all those great characters. We were talking Pilbara and northern development at the CEDA conference. There are incredible value-add opportunities in the cattle industry that will grow jobs, which in turn will underpin the development of the North. Bruce Cheung from Pardoo Station told us about his plan for an exclusively Pilbara beef brand for the region and the extensive breeding research taking place on his station to get the best quality meat for emerging markets. Young agriculturalist Tilwin Westrup is doing the business case for the production of a special dried beef product for northern China. Nicola Forrest reported on the commitment of the Minderoo team to irrigate for fodder production so cattle can be finished off and processed in WA. And, on the Kimberley Aboriginal station of Mowanjum, the irrigated-fodder crops have just come on, and they are celebrating the opportunity of getting more jobs out of their pastoral activities. Beef from the Pilbara and Kimberley can be so much more than a generic commodity. We can exploit the clean, green environment and our scientific capabilities to develop a finished product that is fully branded and produces greater returns and more jobs than we will get from live export.