Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question. The live animal export trade is vitally important to the Australian economy and in particular to its agricultural sector.

The coalition is working to deliver a sustainable livestock export trade that increases economic returns to our farmers and exporters for the long term whilst also providing much-needed foods for the countries receiving our product. This government supports the live export trade and since February 2014 has successfully negotiated access to another four markets: Egypt, Bahrain, Iran and Cambodia. From the combined efforts of government and industry, we are now seeing over one million head of cattle and two million sheep being exported in the past 12 months. For live cattle, this represent a 54 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.

The value of the live export trade, including cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats, between September 2013 and June 2014 has now exceeded $1,000 million. Added to this, might I add, Indonesia is now taking about 59 per cent of our exports. In your home state, Townsville has seen a 4,000 per cent increase in numbers, Darwin 48 per cent, Broome 56 per cent—and so the list goes on. The exports to China have increased by 59 per cent, to Indonesia by 130 per cent, to Malaysia by 44 per cent, to Thailand by 63 per cent and to Vietnam by 726 per cent. Cattle exports to Asia increased by 115 per cent. What it shows is that the market has been re-established by good policy through the coalition.