Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This document is the statutory funding agreement between the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation, often known just as LiveCorp. It details fairly briefly the amount of money involved with regard to section 68C of the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act.

I believe that it is important to emphasise some of the facts surrounding the live export trade, because it is certainly an area where there is a lot of community concern. That concern has been raised many times in the mainstream media as well as in the wider media, and of course it has been raised a number of times in this chamber by me and other Democrats over the years. I note that the LiveCorp website shows some of the things they are spending their money on, one of which is another report which seeks to detail what they say are some of the facts with regard to the live export trade, particularly focusing on how many jobs they state the export trade generates.

According to this report through the LiveCorp website, the industry generates an estimated 9,000 jobs in rural and regional Australia. The numbers of live animals exported last year were: 573,000 cattle—over half a million—the majority to South-East Asia; and well over four million sheep, exported to the Middle East. Many senators and members of the public would recall some of the footage shown on 60 Minutesindeed, I think it was one of the final stories done by the late Richard Carleton—detailing unbelievably cruel conditions in abattoirs in Egypt that Australian cattle were subjected to when they were sent there. The trade to Egypt was subsequently suspended while the government said they would look into it.

I would not be surprised if, having made that token effort, the government now recommence the trade with very little by way of significant changes occurring. The reason I believe that is that history shows that that is what happens. Time and again there is a particular incident that comes to the public attention, there is a huge outcry and there are initial government and industry denials and eventually the evidence is so overwhelming that the government have to accept that with that particular incident there is a problem. They then suspend the trade or have an inquiry or do something else and use that to say that everything is fine. They will run the line that everything is fine until the next crisis happens. This has been a pattern that has been repeating for around 20 years.

I would like to examine the claims in the LiveCorp report, which was produced by Hassall and Associates, as I understand it. LiveCorp also had a report from Hassall and Associates five or so years ago. I might note that a long-time director of Hassalls is Peter Frawley, who is a former chairman of LiveCorp, although he is not a director at the moment. Perhaps that is coincidental. But certainly there are very contrasting figures that have been put together by independent agricultural economists Dr Selwyn Heilbron and Dr Terry Larkin. They found that the live sheep export industry directly competes in the same Middle East market with Australian chilled or frozen sheepmeat industry products. We have this continual suggestion that, if we phase out live exports, there is no other alternative. Well, there is an alternative, because it already operates. Indeed, when the trade was previously banned in Saudi Arabia for a while, there was a massive increase in chilled meat exports.

The other aspect is the 9,000 jobs. This report suggested that the majority of those 9,000 jobs are for sheep farmers, stock hands, stock transport drivers, shearers et cetera, and they would continue to exist. That report also concluded that, if the sheep and cattle currently exported live were instead processed in Australia, a further $1.5 billion would be added to Australia’s GDP and an extra 10½ thousand jobs would be created. So the fact is that the live export industry is costing us jobs as well as involving enormous cruelty, and it is time that those facts were acknowledged instead of covered up. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.