Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to foreshadow that I have a motion around the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024 and making sure we can send that to an inquiry following the Selection of Bills Committee's report so that the thousands and thousands of primary producers, small business owners, GPs and schoolchildren in Western Australia can have their voices heard. After the sham of an inquiry conducted by the House of Representatives, we know that Labor isn't interested in hearing about the impact that its bill will have, not just on our global trading reputation, as a world leader in animal welfare standards and a world leader in making culturally appropriate protein available in the Middle East, but also on our local communities right through Western Australia. The coalition has made very clear that, if we are given the great privilege of forming government after the next election, we will overturn this outrageous ban. We will reinstate confidence in not just the live sheep trade but the cattle trade, which is also feeling that this government cannot be trusted. Whether you're in the forestry industry, as we heard earlier, or whether you're in the primary production industries—sheep, cattle, horticulture, dairy—you are in this government's gun, absolutely; make no mistake about it. And it's not just the primary producers. We want to make sure that the whole supply chain have an opportunity to have their say.

Primary producers cannot believe that they don't have the social licence to produce clean, green food for the world, that somehow what they do is under attack. This government thinks a paltry $107 million package is going to be enough for intergenerational farming families and production systems which rely on this trade—you can't just send the type of sheep that are bred for this trade into some other market. It actually doesn't work that way, and it shows just how out of touch this agriculture minister is with the production systems, particularly in the west. Those opposite think they can just throw 107 million bucks at primary producers. 'It's not compensation,' the minister said in estimates. No, it's not, because you can never compensate people for taking away their livelihood.

Labor governments have form on this stuff. Remember what they did to the live cattle trade when they were last in power. They shut it down—a billion-dollar industry. So don't think that because you keep your head down and keep quiet they're not going to come for you. This is all about a political deal done for inner-city seats in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and they're prepared to sacrifice the primary producers and Western Australian regional communities to get that done. Such is the level of disrespect shown by this government—it's great to see the agriculture minister actually in the chamber for this contribution—that it put more money into producing Mad Max, the movie, than it has put on the table for the primary producers in Western Australia that it's going to put out of business.

It's not just the Western Australian farmers that are not going to take this silently. The Keep the Sheep campaign has been loud and proud. You can go online and sign the petition. They've already raised over $350,000, and they are not going to spend it in safe coalition seats at the next election. They are going to put it up against marginal seat holders and teals who will not support primary producers—the very people that produce food for the country—and they're not afraid to get political. People say, 'Don't be so political.' This is politics. The only reason these farmers are going to be out of business is that Anthony Albanese, who can thank the west for his prime ministership, has shown who he really is. He's an east coast Prime Minister, an inner-city, left-wing, Labor man, as this policy absolutely shows.

We think that these communities deserve a voice. They need a Senate inquiry that will be reporting in September so that those who weren't able to be heard through the House of Representatives inquiry can be. The coalition will never stop fighting for them.