Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I draw the attention of the chamber to the numbers that Senator Rhiannon has spoken about, those being 839 cattle lost in this time. What she did not say is that that is 0.14 per cent of the 600,000 cattle—in fact, cattle are far safer on ships than they are on the rangelands—and that 400 sheep out of 830,000 sheep represents 0.5 per cent. Senators might be interested to learn that human beings in this place die at the rate of 0.6 per cent, a higher rate than either cattle or sheep. Senator Rhiannon is quite right in terms of morbidity, because livestock actually put on weight during the journey. But what is interesting is that Senator Rhiannon in her motion speaks about the fact that 406 animals have been dying on the ships per week. It might be of some interest to learn that 406 humans in Australia die per day. (Time expired)