Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Even for someone of Senator Sterle’s limited ability, that speech was really an embarrassment to all of us in this chamber. To use words like ‘drongo’ and ‘pork chop’ to advance his argument simply reflects more on the speaker than on the people he was accusing. Mr Randall, to whom he was referring, leaves Senator Sterle for dead when it comes to representing his constituents and doing a good job for the people of Western Australia. Senator Sterle’s speech was obviously written by the union to which he is beholden for his position here and he could not even say his jokes without reading them from the text prepared by the union. Totally in contravention of standing orders, Senator Sterle read every single word of his speech, even the jokes that one would have hoped anyone with a modicum of wit could have done spontaneously.

I do not want to spend my speech reflecting on the embarrassment of the speech before mine but I just highlight Senator Sterle’s argument against the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. Do you know what his argument is? It is that all the teachers that work there will be forced into AWAs. That is what Senator Sterle says this bill is about. It is to force teachers to take AWAs. There was nothing about the skills shortages in Australia which desperately need attending to. I am sorry that Senator Sterle is leaving, because if he were to stay and listen he might learn something about the bill and the skills shortages.

He might want to reflect on when this skills shortage started. It was in those 13 long years of Labor control of this country when unemployment rose and when it was made so difficult for employers to take on apprentices. That is when the skills shortage that we currently have started. It was never a big issue in Labor days because unemployment was so high that there were a lot of skilled people unemployed in those days. Labor simply could not get it right. Business was strangled by the unions, and inept government at federal level and the unemployment level meant that there was no shortage of skilled labour. You were very lucky if you could get a job, whether you were skilled or otherwise. That is Labor’s legacy when it comes to skills and workplace relations.

We are in a position now where, because of the great work of Peter Costello and John Howard, we almost have over full employment in this country. Business in all forms is booming and there is a definite employment shortage in most parts of Australia and certainly a huge skills shortage—and I want to highlight a couple of those later on. Senator Sterle’s commentary seemed to be an attempt to attack the Western Australian Liberal members of parliament in the House of Representatives. If that is the best that the Labor Party can do—to try to attack the great work that all of those Liberal MHRs from Western Australia are doing—then I feel for the Labor Party. Not only will they make no inroads against the sitting Liberal members, I predict, but my understanding is that there will be a couple of Labor seats in Western Australia that will fall to the Liberal Party again at the next election. When they put up people like Senator Sterle to try and run the battle we know they are running up the white flag.

This bill is a wonderful news bill. It is all about bringing forward the funding for the Australian technical colleges from the 2008-09 funding year to 2006-07. What a wonderful thing to have an amending bill for. The whole process has gone much more quickly and smoothly than was even anticipated by the promoters and those who initiated this wonderful program of the Howard government. We have to bring forward the funding because the technical colleges have progressed at such a great rate and we need the money earlier. To date, the Australian government has announced 21 successful technical college proposals. Four of them—in Gladstone, Eastern Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Port Macquarie—have already commenced operations. Another, in northern Tasmania—your state, Acting Deputy President Watson—will open this month. Most of the others are scheduled to open in 2007. Australian technical colleges will be up and running in North Brisbane, Adelaide South, Bendigo, Bairnsdale-Sale, Perth South and, I am delighted to add, North Queensland.

I am concerned, as are all others on this side, about the lack of skilled labour in Australia. As I said, the lack of skilled people really relates back to the Labor days, when they did nothing about this and discouraged apprenticeships and employment opportunities. Recently, my Liberal Party Senate colleagues from Queensland and I were in Charleville, in south-western Queensland—a little town with 3,000 or 4,000 people, right out in the west. If you go a bit further, you reach Cunnamulla and then Birdsville, so it is really right out there. Would you believe the big problem in that town is the lack of skilled people in the meat processing industry? That little town has two wonderful meat processing factories in operation. The first is operated by a group called Western Exports. They slaughter goats. They cannot keep up with the demand for goat meat around the world. They export all of their product to the USA. Exports to the USA are tariff free—another benefit of the free trade agreement with the USA.

Of the goats that are processed through that factory, 70 per cent are farmed and 30 per cent are feral. That processing plant suffers for only one reason: they cannot get labour to work in the factory. They have advertised everywhere. They currently employ 150 people; they need another 50. Of the 150 people currently working there, 10 families are from Vietnam. They are in Australia under section 457 visas. The meat processing plant management want more people. From memory, they have arranged for another 10 employees to come to their town. Regrettably, because of spoilt-brat unions’ operations, I think you would say—unions very closely scrutinise all of the section 457 invitees to Australia—the process in dealing with the ones who are desperately needed to keep this processing plant going has been very slow. I have spoken to the minister about it. She understands the need, and her department is working through the applications. It is a slow process because the checking has to be very careful.

All of the people coming in are skilled people, because we do not have skilled meat processing workers in Australia who are able to do the job. The section 457 visa holders are paid the standard wage that all of the, you might say, home-grown Australian processors, whom they work with side-by-side in this factory, are paid. They get something like $37,000 a year. It is a great industry, a great employment generator for south-west Queensland, a great Australian enterprise, and it is harmed because we cannot get people to actually work in the processing factory.

In my inspection of the plant not only did I see a few Vietnamese people—of course, there are mainly Australian born and bred workers—but I was delighted to see a significant number of Indigenous people working in the factory as skilled boners and slicers. Some of the product is slaughtered so that it is halal and can be used in Islamic communities in the United States, where the product goes. It is a great industry, suffering only because we cannot get the labour from within Australia to those places.

I congratulate the owner of Western Exports, Neil Duncan—a guy who had a vision, some enthusiasm and a bit of courage and took the step of building this new processing plant. I wish him all the best. I will certainly be doing what I can to help him get the additional labour that he needs. These Australian technical colleges may, in time to come, help with his problem. The ATCs are a good initiative of the government and will perhaps into the future help us with this skills shortage.

The good news story from Charleville does not stop there. Almost right next door to the Western Exporters processing plant is another processing plant, operated by United Game Processors and a Mr John Burey. They process kangaroos and wild pig—boars. Again, they cannot keep up with demand. They have orders mainly from Europe. Germany is their biggest customer in the wild pig area. A lot of the kangaroo meat goes to Europe. Would you believe, Mr Acting Deputy President, that Russia is Australia’s No. 1 kangaroo meat importer and they imported over $11 million worth of Australian kangaroo meat in 2004, making it, according to the Moscow Times, the largest recipient of Australia’s exports? I am told the majority of this meat was sold in eastern Russia for use in sausage processing.

Exporting kangaroo meat has been going on since 1959 in response to interest from the European game meat industry. Kangaroo skins and furs are exported in large numbers to markets in Europe, the United States and Asia. We export kangaroo meat to 21 countries around the world. I love kangaroo meat. It is very healthy. It is lean and, when cooked properly, it will surpass in my humble opinion any other meat product. My wife is one of those who always object to, as she says, eating the national coat of arms; she will not eat kangaroo or emu. But kangaroos are at times of the year in plague proportions. They are very carefully regulated by the Queensland environment authorities, supported by the Commonwealth environment authorities. It is a great industry. There is no problem with the sustainability of the kangaroo population. Not only does it provide a very healthy meat for Australians but it also employs a lot of people in western Queensland.

I have mentioned that there are 150 people employed in the processing plant in Charleville, but there are many more employed in other areas of the industry. I am sorry—150 in the goat factory and about 50 in the kangaroo and pig factory at the moment. But Mr Burey suffers, as does his neighbour, from the inability to get qualified, skilled people working for him. His constant problem in operating his business is how to say very nicely to people who want the product: ‘Sorry. I can’t supply you.’ It is a great problem to have, and his other problem is getting the skilled labour so he can supply the product that is needed from his area.

In addition to the people employed in those processing plants—the wild pig and kangaroo one and the next-door one processing goats—and the labour created in that small western town, there are any number of shooters, transport operators and other people involved in that business which creates employment in western Queensland. Because I think, as a nation, we need to help as much as we can those small country towns so they remain in existence, I totally support the work being done there. I congratulate both of the processors. I wish them all the very best for the future. They are great Australian enterprises that we need to support. I think this bill deserves support. It is a great bill to be supporting—one that has shown we made a mistake about when we would need the money. We have to bring forward the money that is needed, and I urge senators to support the bill.