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

As I say, Senator Rhiannon and the Greens need to get out there and get a handle on what they are arguing about. If they can differentiate between their wonderland of ideas that will fix an industry or change an industry overnight and we can dictate to the Indonesians what they will do and what they will not do, while at the same time mischievously misleading those poor devils out there in regional Australia who are very decent hardworking people too and who have a passion for eliminating animal cruelty, the world will be a better place.

But get the facts right. You have no idea. It is typical of the Greens—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. You do not spend an inordinate amount of time in remote and rural Australia. I know that under your new leader all of the sudden the Greens are becoming the champions of the farming industry, the champions of farmers around Australia. I have seen the Greens' position on agriculture. God help us if they ever do get to make the decisions on where Australia's agricultural industry goes. They are not friends of agriculture. They like to whip up the hysteria—they love that and they wallow in that. They are a marginalised group of people who are anti-employment. They talk about green jobs—yes, fantastic. They talk about all these wonderful other things we can do that will support rural and regional Australia. It would not do you any harm to get off your backsides—if I am allowed to say that, Mr Acting Deputy President—and get out in the regions and talk to the people of rural Australia, talk to rural industries, talk to the agricultural industry. Go out into the bush and talk to the people who rely on this trade and you tell them that you have got this magic solution that will fix it up. It will be a win-win for them and a win-win for all the animal lovers in Sydney and Melbourne—the latte set, the professional protesters—without taking away those people who absolutely love animals, and I am one of them, make no mistake about that.

I will tell you what has disappointed me, and I have said this before. For Animals Australia to get this footage, in one way thank goodness: they were able to get it to highlight to us that the system could not go on the way it was going—we had to do something to fix it. But to deviously sit on that footage for quite a period of time; to deviously make sure that the ABC had it, not the government; and to deviously make sure they ran off to an opposition senator, who is no longer here, to give her a copy of the footage, which she did not deny when she was asked—you tell me if you are fair dinkum about eliminating animal cruelty. In your heart of hearts, could you have sat on that vile footage while you built a political campaign to do everything you could to destabilise government action to try and promote an industry that is important to this country?

I can hear all the chatter going on up the end of the chamber here, and I would challenge you to a debate too. I would love it, and while we are up there we will talk about a host of things. We can talk about the gas plant and whatever you want to talk about, it doesn't worry me! I am up there all the time. In fact, it is easier to get me up there than it is to get me in Perth. But I also make sure I attend the PGA conferences in the Kimberley at every opportunity. I do not run from it, because I want to hear from the people what their challenges are.

I cannot support the Greens bill. I do not support the Greens actions. I think the Greens, as I said, are being very mischievous, and Senator Rhiannon is leading the charge about how she has got the fix. She has not got the fix. It is all very well to run your campaigns against an industry from afar in some trendy part of Sydney or Melbourne or wherever you are doing it. But you have to tell the truth, Senator Rhiannon, because in this business you will get found out. If you have an idea that will eliminate animal cruelty and we can still sustain a very important part of our economy and a very important part of Northern Australia, please bring it forward. If there is a win-win, if it is not smoke and mirrors, or chimes and fairy floss, or whatever you do with it, I will be standing next to you. But this bill is just another example of the Greens having a little issue that they can fluff up without telling the truth because it is so emotive.

It is emotive for me too. I live not far from Fremantle. I am on Leach Highway, which Senator Rhiannon and Senator Ludlam know, and I have been going to and from work on Leach Highway since 1978, so I know, constantly, those sheep carters going backwards and forwards with legs hanging out of the side of the crates. It is not a good look. And I know that many people do not look behind what is the live animal export trade. I know there are many, many people who just see it as cruel. They do not think about the amount of people who rely on this industry and who are absolutely appalled by the images that we have seen on TV.

I want to use the last minute of time I have now to also say that it would be disingenuous of the opposition to use this debate to have a crack at the federal government. We have stood shoulder to shoulder on the live export trade. I know sometimes politically it suits the opposition to give us a whack on the ban, but you know in your heart of hearts that if you were in government you would have had to act too. You had it for four years when the Egypt problem was not solved and that industry was left out there wallowing. You also know that at the stage when that footage was out, 94 per cent of Australia's cattle was going to Indonesia. So I urge whoever on that side is going to lead the debate for the opposition that you speak from the heart, that you support the government and that you see this bill as it is, knock it back and condemn this as typical Greens grandstanding. But we support any motion that will eliminate animal cruelty.