Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand with my colleagues tonight to oppose this motion brought forward by the Greens. I am a senator for the Northern Territory. I also represent the concerns of those in the Northern Territory. Make no mistake: when the Greens want to shut down live export of animals they won't stop at sheep. They will move beyond that. Our grave concern is not only for the sheep export traders of Western Australia, who will be the most detrimentally affected by such a motion, but also for the Northern Territory and our vast cattle industry.

The coalition put the work in place to ensure that Australia now has the highest standards for animal welfare in terms of the live export industry. It's the highest standard in the world. What concerns me is the fact that the Greens fail to consider the livelihoods of everyday Australians—those that work hard to ensure that there is food on our tables as well as a strong economy. In the Northern Territory, in excess of 40 per cent of the nation's live cattle export trade goes through the Darwin port, so it is close to me. The latest comprehensive economic assessment completed as part of the Northern Australian beef situation analysis indicated that Northern Australia's cattle industry's estimated economic value is worth approximately $5.03 billion, of which $3.7 billion was attributed to the production at the farm gate level. This is what the Greens propose to put at risk when they put up motions such as the disallowance motion we're debating tonight.

I find it ironic that instead of standing here and debating this I would like to be over in the Great Hall where tonight the AgriFutures Rural Women's Award gala dinner is taking place. I would urge the Greens to go over there and speak to those women farmers who live this. This is their livelihood. This is the way in which they pay for their children's futures and their children's education. This is the way in which they uphold our communities—not just the Western Australian communities and the Territory's communities but also communities right across Australia. That's the way they contribute.

Just recently, the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association released a statement speaking to live export bans, remembering what took place in the Northern Territory. In their statement, they reminisced about the then minister for infrastructure who is now our prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and his comments made on ABC's Q&A in defence of the decision for the live export ban at the time. He stated that it was the right thing to do. I'm glad he has changed his position on this—I am—but if you continue to read their statement, and if you can imagine that, instead of Labor, we're talking of the Greens, it's just as relevant now. These concerns are huge. At the same time as Mr Albanese made these comments, Northern Australia was in turmoil. Members of the NTCA and beef producers across the north had been forced into letting their staff go, bringing their children home from school and university while desperately trying to decide what to do with a business that no longer had a market to sell to. Even before the ban, many of these families were struggling through drought, something the government knew at the time. As the ban continued, trucking companies—