James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

What is interesting about the speech we just heard then is that the truth has come out. This bill is the beginning of what the Left want to do to the live export animal trade in Australia. They want to shut it all down. So I speak to the people in Queensland, the cattle producers in Queensland and those in the Northern Territory, who were sent to the end by what happened back under the previous Labor-Greens government, when Joe Ludwig and Prime Minister Gillard turned off the live cattle trade to Indonesia. They turned off a sovereign country's protein intake on the basis of one television program, destroying our relationship with that country—a relationship which is still being rebuilt at the moment—destroying countless, hundreds if not thousands of lives in Queensland.

But they haven't learned from that. They haven't learned from the damage that was inflicted on the people in Queensland and the Northern Territory. This bill is not a five-point plan: it's a two-point plan. They want to shut down the export of sheep to the Middle East and then, anyone in the cattle industry, they're going to come for you also. This is the first step to shutting down the live cattle trade in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

I was in Normanton and Karumba a couple of weekends ago. It's great news in Karumba in terms of what's going to happen with the dredging of the inlet there so cattle can once again be exported live from the Port of Karumba to Indonesia. It's something that is going to create jobs for that community and help the economic growth of regional Queensland. But under the Greens, under the Left's attack on rural and regional Australia, these people who don't understand rural and regional Australia, who do not live in rural and regional Australia and do not understand the importance that farming has for rural and regional Australia—they want to shut it down. They do not understand the impact that this will have, once again, on people in rural and regional Australia. This bill, with its so-called five-year implementation plan and five-point plan and all the other palaver, for those who are listening at home or who read this later, know that the Left are coming for you. If you ever wonder about the difference between the Liberal National Party and those on the other side of this chamber, this is a line of demarcation. We will stand with the sheep farmers of WA. We will stand with the cattle producers of Queensland and the Northern Territory, because we believe in your right to export your produce overseas. We believe in your right to earn income.

The Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, David Littleproud—who is actually my local member because we both live in regional Queensland; we both live in Warwick; he lives on one side of Warwick and I live on the other side of Warwick—has been very strong in his condemnation of this rogue company in terms of what it did in that footage that was shown. Minister Littleproud has been very strong in saying that it was unacceptable.

Let's get some facts on the table. I know that the Left don't particularly like facts. They get in the way of their ideology and their misty-eyed view of the world, which they look at through their mochaccinos and their piccolos and things like that. In 2017, of the 1.7 million live sheep that were exported by sea, 99.29 per cent were delivered in good health and delivered into suitable facilities approved under the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System. That is a fantastic rate.

When you consider what is happening in Australia at the moment, where are the tears from the Left about what's happening in drought-stricken Queensland? Where are the tears from the Greens about what's happening with the graziers in Queensland? There are no tears from them, no tears from the Left. They don't care about these people. They care about these bumper-sticker politics that you see from the Left.

The trade in live sheep to the Middle East is still open and will remain so under this government. The Liberal-National Party is a strong, strong supporter of the live animal trade. We will continue to support the export of sheep to the Middle East, and we will proudly continue to support the export of cattle to Indonesia and elsewhere in the world because we are a trading nation and we will export animals because we need to make sure that we stand up for our rural communities. We need a sustainable live export trade which has good animal welfare outcomes—the trade that provides for over 10,000 rural Australian jobs, 10,000 jobs in rural and regional Australia.

I know that these people on the Left don't care about rural and regional Australia. They never go there. It's like Paul Keating: they fly over it when they're going from one capital city to another to taste the difference in cappuccinos and piccolos and things like that.

This trade was worth, in 2016-17, $1.6 billion. But it is the jobs that are so important for rural and regional Queensland and rural and regional WA and for Australia. They are very, very important. A ban or a phase-out of the entire industry unfairly punishes those exporters and farmers who have done no wrong. The calls to ban live exports disregard the value of this trade to our farmers and others in rural and regional Australia. Banning the live exports is simply a knee-jerk reaction, just like when Joe Ludwig and Julia Gillard were having a cappuccino or whatever it was at the Lodge that night, watching Four Corners, and decided: 'Oh, look! Here's a TV program. We don't like the outcome of this program. Let's just turn off the export of cattle to Indonesia.' What an insulting, patronising attitude the Left take—that we can just switch off a sovereign country's importation of protein. I don't think the Left realise how sanctimonious and patronising they are in how they deal with most Australians and how they deal with independent, sovereign countries.

Banning livestock exports is simply a poorly considered decision and a cop-out. It takes away the livelihoods of Australians and creates food security issues for importing governments. Many farming families and others in the supply chain, including local businesses that provide transport, mustering, feed and agistment services, still remain devastated from the 2011 cattle trade suspension.

We have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to make sure that that public policy decision that was made by the previous Labor-Greens government, which was probably one of greatest failures of public policy in the history of this Federation, is not repeated. A massive failure in public policy has—

Senator McKim interjecting—

They're laughing! They're laughing.