Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Eloquently? Why do you have to use these big words? Okay, that is enough of the big ones. He done well! He did very good! He was quite right that we have Brahman cattle. Brahman cattle are the main cattle that are used for export. Brahman is not a breed of cattle that we have in our market. But my pastoralists in the Top End, particularly the Kimberley Aboriginal pastoralists that I deal with extensively, are faced with a massive problem. They have a product that is not wanted in the Australian domestic meat market. We have this misbelief that is being put out there—and certainly this is not political—that all of a sudden we can open up abattoirs all along the northern coast which we used to have, such as in Port Hedland, Broome, Derby, Wyndham and Kununurra. I for one would love nothing better than to see our abattoirs reopened and our meat slaughtered here in Australia. I would love nothing better than to think that there is actually a requirement for a boxed meat market to Indonesia. The truth—the harsh reality; the fact—is that there is not. So, while we are fighting all these side arguments and silly statements coming from all sorts of self-interest groups or whatever they are, it is not fair for those who do not know our meat market and our live trade export market. That is not an option for us. The only option we have is to get this $330 million industry back on track. We need to do it quickly. We need to do it the right way. Doing it the wrong way is not an option for us, because if this is the behaviour that we have from Animals Australia—if this is their modus operandi and that of the RSPCA—then goodness knows how long it will be before it all appears back on our TV screens again with images of animal cruelty. That would be a travesty for our northern producers, for those directly employed by the producers and for all those very important service industries that rely on this very important trade.

As Senator Scullion said, our truckies are a very, very important part. In fact, if it were not for the truckies, it would not matter how good our cattle are or how great our market is; the cattle would not get there. It does upset me, alarm me and hurt me to hear that 30 truck drivers two weeks ago were put off the job. They were employed, I believe, with Road Trains Australia. I know the trucks, because they used to be bigger than mine and would try and take their part of the road and mine—that was when we had single-lane bitumen. There is nothing worse. Where are these truck drivers going to go? What the heck are they going to do? It is not as though they are going to be sitting under a tree waiting for the whistle to be blown to signal that we are back on and everything is going to happen. It is not only the truck drivers, those people that have invested their life savings in purchasing those trucks and those crates. What about the tyre fitters? What about the auto-electricians? What about the mechanics? It goes on and on and on. If anyone wants to have an argument with me—I know no-one in this chamber does—about the costs of running a vehicle, bring it on. But they will not; I know that. There are a number of other industries that hang off our northern export live trade. It is a nonsense to think that tourism will carry us through and we can survive in that part of the world when we have a window of about five or six months of good weather. There are no other jobs for these people; there are no other opportunities.

It is very important to notice that we have implemented—I know we have copped a bit of flak—some assistance for those that are affected. I know that we will always have people saying we are not doing enough. I have heard the commentary saying: 'Stick it in your back pocket. We don't want handouts; we want our industry back.' Fine, but I remember when Ansett Airlines collapsed. I am an ex-Ansett employee, and I remember when 30,000 Australians were thrown out on the street overnight with absolutely no assistance. So if we can at least afford some assistance while we work our way through this and while the minister is doing his best—I believe the Prime Minister has the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Trade and everyone working on this to try and get this unfortunate situation corrected—then I think it is a bit disin­genuous to throw that back in our face and say that we do not care. We all care. I do not know, but I would be pretty close to the mark to say that I do not think the minister has been sleeping very well in the last few months with the pressure that is on him. With the greatest respect, I fully endorse and support his position, because the last thing we want, as I said, is more footage of animal cruelty.

We will have to have a very, very structured system. We need to have international standards up to OIE; that is not an argument. We need that. We need the supply chain. We need to know—for our own sake and for the sake of the producers and the cattle—where they have come from. We need to be able to track them through our National Livestock Identification System from the farm to where they end up in Indonesia. Do not forget that when the Indonesians take our Brahmans they put an impost on our growers and our producers that there be nothing over 350 kilograms. So they have them and fatten them up in Indonesia for a period that the good Dr Back would be able to tell me; I think it is about 80 to 100 days to get them up there. But we have heard stories of our cattle appearing in the slaughter yard some two years after they left Australian shores. That is not good enough. We also need an independent auditor on the ground. This is what we need. This is where I am going to do my darnedest to work with my minister to assist this fantastic industry and get it up and running. For goodness sake, let us get it done as quickly as we possibly can.