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

Mr Deputy President, I congratulate you on your promotion. I stand to make a comment and all of a sudden I hear the mouth from the west going off. It did not take him long!

I made a contribution yesterday and I want to reiterate what I was talking about. I am one of those senators who are so glad to see the ban lifted. I said yesterday, in support of Senator Scullion and in support of my colleagues from Western Australia Senator Back and Senator Adams, that this $330 million industry is so darn vital to the north of our country that I would hate to think where we would be without it. I also said yesterday and reiterate that some 500,000 head of cattle went out last year but it is the thousands and thousands of jobs in the Top End of Australia, particularly in my state of Western Australia, in the Northern Territory and in Queensland—it is to a lesser extent in some of the other states—without which the north of Australia could not survive on tourism alone. There are bits of mining here and there; that is quite right.

I want to talk about the Kimberley. That is a part of the world where—unlike you, Senator Cormann, or you, Mr Deputy President, though I stand to be corrected if I am wrong—I made my living from 1979 through to 1991. I still have a very long affiliation with the Kimberley, in particular through my connections and my work with the Kimberley Aboriginal Pastoralists Association. As I said yesterday, Mr Doodie Lawford from Bohemia Downs, who represents 22 Aboriginal pastoral leases, said that without the opportunity of the live export trade he did not know where they would be. They proudly employ Aboriginal boys as stockmen through Doodie Lawford and KAPA, who for years have invested in training Aboriginal boys to get them out of some of the sad situations they find themselves in in some of our Kimberley towns like Fitzroy, Broome, Derby, Wyndham and Kununurra, to give them the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of their grandfathers. There is such pride in watching them do that. So when the ban was put on, after those shocking images that we saw on Four Corners that evening, it worried me to think where these boys would end up if we did not have a live export trade.

I go back to one of the greatest prime ministers we had in this country: the Right Hon. RJ Hawke. When Prime Minister Hawke took the initiative and had the deter­mina­tion to give our Aboriginal traditional owners the opportunity not only to work their country but own their country; self-determine and make a decent, honest living; live in country and do the things they want to do; and pass on their language, law and culture to their young ones; what a wonderful opportunity there was through pastoralism. So I take offence when I find those on the opposite side bagging us because we have endeavoured to do whatever we could to get this industry back on its feet.

Let us make no mistake: the ban had to be put on. But, as the Prime Minister has said repeatedly and as the honourable Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig, has said, not one day longer would we take than needed to get this industry up and running again. And here we have Senator Scullion, who I still believe is a very honourable representative of the Northern Territory pastoral industry, stand­ing here condemning and bagging us. Does he want us to put a ban back on and stop the industry again? We know that the industry will not kick off and be exporting cattle tonight; but, for crying out loud, we actually now have a system where we will have full traceability. We will have auditing on the ground, which I know Senator Back and I have discussed. Senator Back and I work very closely. We are not on the same side of the political fence, but we both have decency in our DNA. There you go, Senator Back; you owe me one! But what we have discussed is having this sort of thing on the ground where we have accountability and traceability so we know where our cattle are going. I think it is a darn good start that that ban has been lifted, and I want to do everything I can in supporting the minister, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade, who worked day and night to get this industry back up and running. So I can go back up to the Kimberley next week, where I will be, and I will be on one of those Aboriginal pastoral leases, at Doon Doon. I will be talking to the traditional owners at Doon Doon, and I will be getting their concerns. I have to tell you: I am in Doon Doon every year at least once and, if there were not a live export trade, those poor devils would have absolutely nothing. They would have no chance of jobs, no chance of a decent living and no chance of self-respect.

So I do take offence when I hear the opposition condemning us for actually acting, and I also take offence when I find out that Animals Australia and the RSPCA, as I said yesterday, had held those images for at least one month before the images were aired on the Four Corners program; they gave them to Senator Coonan. Through you, Mr Deputy President, I do not condemn Senator Coonan. Senator Coonan is a very decent person, and she would have been alarmed at those images. But when I find out that those animal representative bodies, who I have supported—the RSPCA in particular, who were always welcome in my office until now—held those images so they could build up, in their words as reported by Colin Bettles, political ammunition and political angst, they should stand condemned too. The truth of the matter is that those people are not honourable. Those people do not care about our northern pastoral industry. They do not care about our Aboriginal pastoralists. They do not care about those Aboriginal boys with dreams in their eyes of following their grandfathers' footsteps to become stockmen. If those groups had their way, those Aboriginal people would live under a tree peacefully and we would not have to put up with them. So they stand condemned in my view.

We will get this industry up and running. It is up and running. We have a system now that we did not have before. Quite rightly, I do not believe one Australian could sit back and condone the practices that were seen on that footage shot in Indonesia in those abattoirs. It made me feel sick. But I want to also stress this, Mr Acting Deputy President—sorry, Mr Deputy President. I am so glad of your promotion; I really am. It is coming through my head, because you and I came into the Senate at the same time and, again, I am so proud of that. Unfortunately, there is no other alternative for our northern pastoral industry. There are all these myths around that we could go back to the good old days and open the abattoirs again in Port Hedland, in Broome, in Derby, in Wyndham and in Kununurra. I say this clearly: I would much rather see a boxed meat market. I would much rather see Australian abattoirs employing Australians—Australian jobs. I could not think of anything better. There is no market for that. There is no demand for a frozen meat market to Indonesia. We are talking about some 2,000-odd islands out there. We are talking about abattoirs—wet abattoirs—that do not even have access to electricity, so they do not have freezers. They do not have Coles and Woolworths on every corner where they can walk in and buy their cuts. Unfortunately for us, that is our market. But it is our responsibility to put in a decent system of accountability, traceability and auditing, and that is what the minister has done.

I want to congratulate the minister. It has been a horrific time for him. It has been a horrific time for our producers, our truckies, our stockmen and our rural businesses that rely on the northern live export trade—our truck owners, our tyre fitters, our electricians, the mechanics and everyone who services those industries in the Top End of Australia. Without that industry—well, I do not even want to go there. So the minister must stand congratulated. It is in the best interests of Australians. The opposition should be standing alongside us. The oppo­sition should be working with us and should congratulate us. We should congratulate the industry for taking that step forward, and we should congratulate people like Mr Paul Holmes a Court—I think it is Paul, but I am sorry if it is not; it might be Peter—who has said clearly to his clients that not one of his cattle will go to an abattoir unless it is stunned. He has made that decision, and I urge all Australian cattle producers to follow his lead.