David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me make this very clear: the coalition will be opposing this bill. Let me also make this clear: a future coalition government will reinstate this industry. I want to make it very clear to every Western Australian that this coalition, when we are elected, will have the back. We will have faith and confidence in them and the reforms that they've put in place in leading the world in animal welfare standards. We won't cut and run. We won't leave the rest of the world to take up a market that doesn't live up to our animal welfare standards. That's not the Australian way. I make it very clear today that a future coalition government will reinstate the live export of sheep by sea to the Middle East.

I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give the bill a second reading and

(1) criticises the Government for imposing its reckless and ideological decision to shut down Australia's live sheep export industry by sea;

(2) recognises that:

a) Australia's live sheep export industry employs more than 3,000 people in Western Australia, including shearers, truck drivers, fodder suppliers, livestock agents, farmers and producers;

b) these workers now face the prospect of losing their job, and families that are struggling under financial stress may now face a difficult decision to leave their rural towns and communities;

c) this industry has delivered comprehensive reforms which have secured exemplary animal welfare outcomes; and

d) Australia has the highest standards of animal welfare in the world;

(3) further criticises the Government for the mismanagement and lack of consultation on this policy to end live sheep exports with farmers, sheep producers, and impacted communities;

(4) acknowledges that this policy is widely and strongly opposed across the agriculture sector;

(5) expresses concern that if the live sheep export industry is banned, alternatives will be sourced from countries that do not share Australia's animal welfare standards, resulting in perverse international animal welfare outcomes; and

(6) calls on the Government to immediately reverse its policy to shut down this industry".

We have been very clear on this and we're being very upfront. I was the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources in 2018, when the Awassi incident came to light. We didn't have a knee-jerk reaction. We didn't shut the industry down overnight. We worked with the industry and we reformed it.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like Pete McGauran did!

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In fact, as the member opposite interjects, that bill from the last time the Labor was in government and shut down the live cattle industry is going to cost the Australian taxpayer well in excess of $200 million because the Federal Court found that the Labor minister at the time, Bill Ludwig, made it without proper consideration.

When there was an incident with this industry, we worked with the industry. We didn't have a knee-jerk reaction. We didn't shut it down. We made sure that we reformed it, and we reformed it to a way that has led the world, that has set the standard internationally, that we should be proud of. We didn't put our head in the sand and we didn't turn away from this. We made sure that we could face up to the world in saying to them that this is the standard that now everyone must meet. By cutting and running, which isn't the Australian way—not while we're in government, anyway—you will have perverse animal welfare outcomes because that standard will be lost.

Let me tell you what I did to reform this industry when I was agriculture minister. It was about the stocking density rates on those boats. It was abut making sure that we had science and that we reformed the methodology of how we assessed the success of a shipment, whether it be cattle or sheep, to anywhere in the world. It was to make sure that was predicated on world-leading science that was created right here in Australia to make sure that the community had confidence and we set the standard internationally. That science was so intricate that we went from a mortality methodology, where the assessment of deaths on a boat of over 60,000 to 70,000 sheep had to be reported if there was one per cent mortality on that shipment, to now being down to half a per cent. Instead of going by the mortality, we overlaid that with the cause of that mortality: heat stress. That heat stress is what we made the reforms around. That was very scientific. It was done by eminent scientists and veterinarians that could give us confidence. It went to the very heart of the principle of the reforms that we put in place to make sure that these animal welfare standards would lead to us leading the world.

In fact, that sheep that trave on these boats now actually put on weight. As someone from western Queensland, let me tell you: animal husbandry is pretty simple. If animals are fed, watered, can walk around and can have a lie-down, they're pretty happy. When they're happy, they put on weight. It's a pretty simple philosophy and pretty simple in terms of what is happening to these sheep that we now have on our boats. We have made sure that each individual boat that comes to this country has its own individual score in terms of the air that flows through those boats. That's important in setting the stocking density rates to ensure that those sheep are happy and content and that there are good animal welfare outcomes. We score each individual boat by the way that it's built and by how much airflow it has. Then we look at each individual animal before it goes on that boat, and we measure to the millimetre the length of wool on each sheep—they're shorn before they go on—and they're allowed on. We also weigh them, and the weight of the sheep is very important as well because that goes into the stocking density rates you can put on these boats, in the pens. That's important because, if you have airflow and you have the weight and you have the length of the wool, that reduces heat stress.

But we went a step further. What I wanted to do when I was the minister and what our government wanted to do was have truth and proof. We wanted to prove to the Australian community we were leading the world in animal welfare standards in the shipment of sheep to the Middle East. I put in place independent observers that gave truth and proof about how the exporters were treating those animals on the export voyage. That was about making sure we had certainty and currency in what we were doing and what we were saying. They made sure that they built on that science of not just the airflow that was going through the boat, the stocking density predicated on the length of wool and the weight of those sheep; it was also about the pants per minute. We could work out whether sheep were heading into a heat stress situation by the number of pants they were taking per minute. This is a shipment of 50,000 or 60,000 sheep, and we were able to demonstrate that because of the reforms we put in place we would then have precautionary principles taken over by those exporters to ensure there was artificial airflow to reduce the humidity, to allow the airflow to go through and to reduce those pants per minute to ensure there was a good animal welfare outcome. That is something no other country in the world had ever done before, and that is what we did here in Australia.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Other countries have banned it!

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what we did. We didn't cut and run, like the member for Clark wants us to do.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Other countries have banned it! That's a good standard!

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He lives in Hobart, dripping with sanctimony and self-righteousness.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only good standard is to ban the trade!

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has never been to regional Australia or on a boat. He wants to sit there, in condemnation—

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Maranoa will resume his seat. I ask the member for Clark to cease interjecting. You will have an opportunity to speak at a later time. The member for Maranoa has the call.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm proud of the reforms we put in place. I don't live in an ideological world; I live in the practical world. I live in a world where this industry will continue whether or not we're there. The agriculture minister says this is a declining industry. His own department refutes that. In 2022 there were 380,000 sheep sent to the Middle East. In 2023 it was 654,000. I don't know whether you need a calculator but that's an increase, not a decline.

Let me tell you why there was a decrease in 2022 and probably even in 2021: there was this thing called a drought. Being from western Queensland, I can tell you that we destocked. A lesson for those from metropolitan areas: what happens when a drought hits is there is no food, water dries up and you sell your stock, but when the rain comes back you have to restock. Instead of sending sheep from Western Australia to the Middle East, we were sending sheep across the Nullarbor and they helped replenish the east coast and electorates like mine in western Queensland with over two million sheep we did not have and, in fact, would not have been able to procure. We would have had to try and produce, which takes time; I don't think I have to explain to the member for Clark in particular about how that happens and the time of gestation. That's about cashflow for farmers; that's about paying the bills. The practical reality is that this industry is in incline, and the only time it isn't is when it's a safeguard for the east coast. When we have challenges on the east coast it's an opportunity to draw on those stock from the west coast and to give us the ability to make money, to pay for taxes and to pay for you and me to sit here in this parliament and make changes.

This industry will continue. Let me tell you: this is not just about us. It is so arrogant for us to sit here and say to those countries in the Middle East, like Qatar and Kuwait and the UAE, 'You are not trusted with our live sheep because we don't believe you have the animal welfare standards.' This is not just about food security; this is cultural as well. This is about respecting their cultural beliefs and giving them the food security they need. This industry will continue whether we're there or not. If we're not there, the countries that will take this market up will be countries like Ethiopia, Sudan and South Africa. I talk about the science of stocking density rates on boats. But they don't work on animal welfare. They work on a mortality methodology—the one that we came from. But they don't work on any stocking density rates at all. Their methodology is to put as many sheep as they possibly can on a boat, and what they get paid for is what is left at the other end. That is horrific.

This is about us having a moral compass, not being morally bankrupt and ideological from the sanctity of Hobart but actually having the—

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Maranoa will resume his seat. The member for Clark, on a point of order?

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Deputy Speaker: the member is reflecting on my character. I ask him to withdraw those comments.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Clark will resume his seat.

The member for Clark has made his point and will resume his chair. I ask the member for Maranoa, for the sake of the House, to remove—

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I sorry he's so upset, but it's a few home truths that need—

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I asked the member for Maranoa to withdraw.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Speaker. Sorry; I didn't hear that.

It is important to understand that, when we remove ourselves, when we cut and run—the Labor way—from this industry, those countries will take it up, and what you will see is the senseless and horrific death of millions of sheep from heat stress. They will die a horrific death. Much of the vision that those opposite were opposed to and made them want to shut this industry down without reforming it—what they will see is that transposed onto ships coming from those countries. Where is the moral compass with that? That's not the Australian way. We stay and get it right and we lead the world.

But it gets worse, because, by not sending these boats anymore, we also lose our influence in the processing of the sheep in the Middle East. I actually had the courage, unlike the current minister, to go to the Middle East, after the Awassi Express, and explain to them and give them confidence that we would continue to send live sheep but there would be conditions and there would be reforms about animal welfare, many of which they had already adopted, not only in terms of shipment but in terms of the processing. They were prepared to do it.

So important is it to them and their food security and their cultural beliefs that they are prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars on new abattoirs. The one that I visited in Kuwait City was brand new, the size of a rugby league field, complete with a viewing area for 2,000 people and a playpen in the corner for the kids. What happens is that you come in, you go out to the yards, you put your tag around the sheep that you want, you wait for the number to come up, you go up to the glass and you watch the sheep being processed and you see that it is processed in the way in which their culture expects it to be. That's respect. That's respect that we've given these countries around their cultural beliefs and their food security. That's the investment that they've made and the importance that they place on it. So that Australia is actually able to send them these sheep, to give them that food security, they live up to the standards that we are asking them to process those sheep in. Now that will be lost.

The animal activists jump up and say that there is leakage out of the supply chains and that you see people take sheep out of the pens and put them in the boot of a car and take them home and slaughter them at home. Well, that's going to become the norm. That's what happens when Australia cuts and runs. That the animal welfare standard that this government is going to sign sheep from around the world up to. How do you value the welfare and the life of one sheep above the welfare and the life of one from another country? If you are morally invested in this as much as those opposite say they are, then how can you do that? How can you morally sit there and value the welfare of an animal from one country over the welfare of an animal from another? I can't. I'm going to stay and get this right. That's why we'll reinstate this industry.

There is this folly about: 'We'll be able to process them all in Western Australia.' Let me give another little agriculture lesson for those opposite. There are some practicalities around this, around agricultural production and understanding the seasonality in terms of supply. If you want to build an abattoir in this country, it's going to cost you the best part of $50 million, probably a bit more. To get a return on an abattoir, you actually have to have it running 365 days a year. That takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of costs in energy, particularly when you've got an energy policy like this mob have. But you've also got to have the staff. In Western Australia, because it's a seasonal industry, these sheep come off and are sent to the Middle East in a seasonal pattern that goes with their production cycles in Western Australia. You can't keep an abattoir going for 365 days a year. No-one is going to take a punt on $50 million to build an abattoir that can only run for nine months of the year.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's the point. We're going to change the nature of the industry so it's more consistent.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't know where the member for Clark, who wants to continually interject about this, gets his economics, but, if he goes and has a look at an abattoir and talks to someone who owns one, they'll tell him very quickly that no-one's going to make that sort of investment unless they can keep it running 365 days a year, not six to nine months of the year. How do you find the workforce for six to nine months and shoot them off again? It doesn't pass the commonsense test. What this government is doing is playing on the ignorance of people in capital cities who don't understand the production cycles and systems and don't understand the world.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But they understand animal welfare.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Maranoa will resume his seat. I've asked the member for Clark to cease interjecting. I like the member for Clark, and I'm not going to take further action and I don't want to. So please cease interjecting. You will have an opportunity later to speak in this place.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the folly that is being sold to Australians—that we can just process them all here—without understanding these decisions. This is what happens when you have a government that doesn't understand agriculture and doesn't understand production cycles. If you were serious about the ideological view you'd taken and you had conviction in what you believed, wouldn't you go and face these people in Western Australia—the 3,000 livelihoods that you're about to rip away? The Prime Minister on election night said that no-one would be held back and no-one would be left behind. That's unless you live in Western Australia. That's unless you're in agriculture. Why wouldn't you go and look them in the eye and say: 'Look, this is the reason why we are shutting down. This is the scientific reason why we are shutting this industry down. This is the economic reason why we are shutting this industry down.' But they have no courage to go and face any farmer or anyone in the industry.

In fact, when the minister went to announce that the phase-out date was May 2028, he flew on taxpayer dollars to Perth to make an announcement at the Commonwealth parliamentary offices by invitation only and Zoomed in every stakeholder in the industry. He didn't eyeball them. He hid in a parliamentary office so that he could do his press conference with Perth in his background. How shallow can a minister be that he doesn't have the courage of his convictions to front up to these people and make an announcement? Go and make the announcement at Katanning. Go to the yards in Katanning and tell them. If you are so convinced about why you are doing this, if you are so righteous, then go and face them. Look them in the eye. That's the Australian way. It's not to just cut and run. If you're going to cut someone's livelihood, have the courage to look them in the eye and tell them exactly what you're going to do and why you're doing it. Instead, this is all ideological.

As soon as that announcement came out, so too did the press releases. The Animal Justice Party takes credit because this is now the reward for the preference deal that they did with Labor in the 2022 election. They did it to get their preferences. It all came out. But we knew that from the start because the animal activists were the ones who announced the closing down of this industry to start with. That's who's running this government. It's not someone who makes decisions predicated on experience or knowledge or industry insight or consultation. That's why you see over a thousand registered trucks and tractors driving through the streets of Perth. They've had a gutful of not being listened to.

Not only that but this government is so incompetent. The minister sent his department to tell Kuwait and Qatar that they were going to phase this out. But how incompetent were they? They sent them to the wrong agency. They told the wrong government department that they will no longer have food security because Australia doesn't trust them anymore. They sent them to the wrong department, causing an international incident with a good, significant trading partner from the Middle East. This shows how invested this government has been in its pursuit of shutting down a lawful industry.

I get the passion from some, particularly those from capital cities that don't understand and don't appreciate exactly what happens, but you are talking about the livelihoods of 3,000 Australians, taken away with the stroke of a pen, without a reason, without science, without economics and without acknowledging the reforms that were put in place to protect this industry that this country led and leads the world on. Why would you not have the courage of your conviction to front up and face them and tell them to their face exactly why? Australian governments should be better than that, no matter their political persuasion. They should have the courage to face up and they should have the courage to say to their fellow Australians, 'I'm going to take your livelihood away and this is why.' If you don't then you don't have a social licence to operate, as far as I'm concerned. The people of Western Australia and these producers are, rightfully, wondering where their government is going.

There is a better way, and we have shown it as a nation, and that's why this industry needs to continue. That's why we still want to see meat processing in this country. We've got to understand the limitations of it in terms of production cycles. It's great for economists and those in capital cities telling us how to operate and how to produce the food and fibre that they enjoy every day, but at some point they might want to have an understanding of the economics of it and how it actually operates. Otherwise, you're going to have a perverse outcome. This is the challenge that we have, and you will see these countries taken up.

When I asked the Prime Minister in question time in the last sitting to name one country in the world that has higher animal welfare standards in the export of live animals—anywhere in the world—he could not name one country—zip—because there aren't any. This is the moral dilemma of those opposite who want to take this away. If they're really honest with themselves, when they go and put their heads on their pillows tonight and shut their eyes, they should really ask themselves: 'Have I really saved any sheep? Really? Am I going to save the welfare of any sheep because of these actions?' They won't. The ideology will tell them that; the practicality won't. The practicality of this is that they will have the deaths of millions of sheep—horrific deaths of heat stress, of conditions that we would never support, that no farmer ever supports.

What we did is we led, we reformed and we changed it. We did that with the cattle industry as well. There was an error in 2011—and I mentioned earlier that this government made a knee-jerk reaction and shut it down, which is going to cost about $200 million to $400 million in compensation. But they were given a chance—they reformed it and they reformed the processing sector in Indonesia so that our animal welfare standards were respected in Indonesia. The Indonesians had the respect to lead as well, and to make sure that the animal welfare standards that we expect are delivered there. That's what it is to be part of a global community and to do the right thing, not to cut and run, not to have some ideological view because a minority in this country is asking you for it and because you want their preferences. It's about doing the right thing. It's about leading the world. In regional Australia we have led the world, and we're going to be let down by politicians dripping with self-righteous sanctimony who have zero understanding of this industry. They've never engaged with this industry. They've never engaged with production cycles in any agricultural form, yet they are prepared to sit here and make decisions on these people's livelihoods and futures with the stroke of a pen, without even saying a word to them. That is not the Australia that I know. That is not what regional Australians expect should happen in their parliament. That's not what they expect from their elected members of parliament.

For this minister, who voted against a motion we put up last week to have a parliamentary inquiry into this, because he failed to go and talk to them, we thought we might get the parliament, and then within a matter of days, he then reverses it and says, 'Yes, there's still a parliamentary inquiry, but let's do it over the next two to three weeks.' That is absolute contempt for those men and women whose livelihoods he has taken away with the stroke of a pen. He's not shutting this industry down till 2028, so wouldn't you think he could give them some respect? Wouldn't you think that he could show the respect to turn up and have a parliamentary inquiry, test his science and test his economics in front of this industry—in front of the men and women whose livelihood he's going to take away. Let's have a debate of ideas on this. Instead, he's shown absolute contempt that they must have their submissions in within less than a week.

That's absolute contempt for understanding what farmers and industry are going through. They're not sitting there with bated breath waiting for the minister to ask for a submission. These men and women are out producing your food and fibre. To say that there's limited spaces and limited time for you to go and put your case to your elected officials, to disrespect them and disrespect democracy in the way that this government is proposing to do speaks volumes about them, not the farmers whose livelihoods are being taken away.

I challenge the minister to follow through with what he also committed to in Senate estimates, that there would be a Senate inquiry into this, because I suspect this is all about the politics of the cities. 'Oh, no, we gave the good old people from the bush a bit of a look in. We gave them a parliamentary inquiry and they had a whinge, but we were right after it.'

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'We had the numbers on the committee.'

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yeah, don't worry about it. It's in the Senate where this thing could stop. The minister needs to show the courage of his convictions if he believes so passionately in the science—that he cannot seem to give.

Even on the weekend on Insiders, when he was asked, 'Why are you shutting this down?' His reply was, 'The industry hasn't done enough.' Tell us what is enough then? Tell us what would be enough to meet the high standards that this minister believes in because he'll have to also tell us what the science is. I challenge the minister to live up to his word and have that Senate inquiry, because there are crossbench senators there that can stop this madness.

I can assure you that a future coalition government will stop this madness. We will give certainty to Western Australian producers, and we'll also give it to cattle and sheep producers around the country because cattle producers are caught up in this, and not just in Western Australia. They can see the contagion that's coming because the animal activists are running this show, and this ban will go from sheep to cattle. It is coming to an industry in a state near you. This is the ideology that's being run by this government. Just understand what it cost you and what it cost us in our reputation with Indonesia the last time we shut down the live export industry to Indonesia.

There is a way to do this. It's about respect and it's about understanding the food security and the cultural needs of these countries, and making sure we're there to do it. That's the Australian way. While I respect the ideology of many of these people from the city that come in and condemn this industry without knowing anything about it, what I don't respect is that you don't have an understanding of what happens out in regional Australia, what happens on these farms, what happens on these boats and what happens in these processing centres.

We're proud of what we've done. We're proud of the reforms that we put in place. This industry deserves another go. It's proven itself to not just Australians but to the world.

I don't want to be part of a parliament that doesn't have the courage not only to look people in the eye when they're going to shut their industry down, but to stand up and to lead the world. That's the Australian way. That's the country that I was born into and am proud to be part of. That's the one that I'm going to stand here and fight for. And I'll ensure that any future coalition government makes sure that they live by those principles in the future, as well, because there's too much to be lost.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Debate adjourned.