David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a former vet, I know a few things about animal welfare. This debate about live exports and the Animal Export Legislation Amendment (Ending Long-haul Live Sheep Exports) Bill 2018 is not about animal welfare. I'll tell you what it's about. It's about racism. The people who buy our sheep are brown, and those who don't want to sell them our sheep look down on them. It's about arrogance. The people who oppose live exports want to tell people in other countries to get a refrigerator and buy their meat already killed and packaged, just as they do. It is about cultural imperialism. The people who buy our sheep have their own culture, which involves eating freshly killed sheep during religious festivals, even if they own refrigerators. Those opposed to live exports want to stop them doing that. Just imagine if these brown people tried to stop us eating ham at Christmas by refusing to sell us pigs.

It's not about animal welfare. If it were about animal welfare, we would be increasing our exports of live sheep because, the more Australia exports sheep, the less other countries export, and Australian sheep are exported more humanely, with better animal welfare, than those of any other country. Because of our ESCAS scheme, our Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System, the welfare of Australian sheep doesn't stop when they're offloaded. We actually tell people how to handle the sheep even when they're not ours. Australia is the only country in the world that actively works in overseas markets to improve animal welfare conditions. We're the only country in the world that attempts to regulate livestock exports all the way from Australian farms to feedlots and abattoirs overseas. Producer levies fund millions of dollars worth of training, education, research and development to improve animal welfare conditions during voyages and in overseas markets. We could sell a lot more sheep if we didn't have that. For example, Saudi Arabia won't buy our sheep, because the Saudis don't want us telling them how to handle them. So, of course, the Saudis buy sheep from other countries, and sheep welfare is not as high. If we were to stop exporting livestock, the welfare of animals overall would decline. In 2007, for example, Australia could not meet the Middle East demand for live animals, so animals were imported from Sudan, Somalia and Iran, countries that do not share Australia's commitment to animal welfare and, critically, may also pose animal disease risks, because Australian exported sheep and cattle enjoy the best welfare of any exported livestock in the world.

It is also a simple fact that boxed and chilled meat exports cannot replace livestock exports. If Australia stopped exporting live sheep and cattle, there would be not one single job created in Australia. The importing countries would simply buy their sheep from somewhere else. Even if they did start importing meat rather than live animals, they wouldn't buy it from Australia. We are a high-cost source, and they need low-cost meat.

Finally, let's not forget that the livestock export industry supports thousands of Australian jobs. The livestock export industry provides 13,000 jobs, including 11,000 in rural areas, to Australian workers and, in some parts of Australia, is the entire backbone of the community and economy. The supply of Australian livestock also ensures hundreds of thousands of households across Asia and the Middle East have access to essential and affordable protein. We are helping to provide protein to some of the world's poorest people. These countries do not have the resources or the geography to efficiently produce livestock to feed their people. Australia has an important role to play in providing food to Asia's growing population, and livestock exports can be part of the food solution. Calls to ban live exports are wrong from every perspective. They are racist, imperialist, arrogant and anti animal welfare.