Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Each year Australia exports millions of live animals, but before the sheep, cattle and other exported animals reach their destinations tens of thousands will die from the trauma of the unacceptable conditions of the voyage. This latest report on livestock export mortalities is witness to another 681 cattle and 19,407 sheep that have died on voyages in the one year since 2011 alone. In 2012 there were 192 voyages exporting cattle and 39 exporting sheep. Animals are often required to remain in very poor conditions for longer than a month, and this is on the back of often arduous journeys by road from the stockyards to the ports. Think of the animal cruelty. It is something that we need to address.

We could actually have a win-win here: we could reduce the animals' suffering and we could create so many more jobs in Australia if the Australian government would get behind a clear transition plan and open up more processing of the meat in Australia. The market for processed meat is expanding enormously, and there is growing concern that, because of the lack of action and lack of leadership from the Australian government, we are losing out here. Again, we are losing out in terms of addressing the considerable animal cruelty issues as well as just not creating the tens of thousands of jobs that can be returned to rural and regional Australia.

Coming back to this report that sets out these worrying figures, these animals are uprooted from large grazing pastures. Then, obviously, they can end up exhausted, frightened and anxious just from the travel to the port. We know the compliance by the exporters with the loading and unloading procedures is often abused. Then, on the ships, thousands of animals endure loud noise and vibrations. The conditions are often very cramped. The animals may be left to wallow in their own urine and faeces. So it adds up to a very stressful journey. It is quite understandable why so many die and we end up with these reports. Considering the number of animals exported, discussing the mortality rate in percentage terms is disingenuous and belies the sheer magnitude of suffering and distress these creatures endure as they are transported to our export partners for slaughter. Australians are not cruel people. The vast majority do not support live exports. A 2012 survey commissioned by the World Society for the Protection of Animals showed widespread opposition to the live export trade, with almost seven out of 10 respondents believing that the live export trade should be ended.

Returning to the issue of the boxed meat, from 2000 to 2011 exported boxed meat earned $59 billion, while live sheep and cattle exports earned $8.4 billion. The average earnings over the 11-year period were $5.4 billion per annum for exported boxed sheep and cattle and $765 million per annum for sheep and cattle live exports. So it is again giving emphasis to the very important point that so many jobs could be created in Australia and business could really develop on a much more solid footing by having the meat processed in this country and developing markets for the boxed meat trade. The government is really doing the wrong thing by the industry, because we are losing out to other markets at the present time.

This is an area that the Greens are giving a lot of attention to. We are working with animal welfare groups, with farmers and with the union that covers meatworkers, because clearly there is an opportunity here for there to be a transition away from a reliance on the live export trade and to bring great benefits to regional Australia as well as reducing the animal suffering.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Australian Meat and Live-stock Industry Act report on livestock mortalities for export for the period from July to December 2012 and once again, despite very difficult circumstances faced by the industry, to congratulate the industry on the remarkably good figures that we have seen for survival, particularly of sheep and cattle, to our destined markets.

I was interested in Senator Rhiannon's comments about loss of market, because that is exactly what has happened, regrettably, to our markets over the last six to 12 months, and the way things are going it probably will continue. Long-trusted markets—45 years in the case of Kuwait—such as Doha in Qatar and Oman are now being lost to Australia simply because of the unreliability of what had previously been an incredibly safe, high-quality market, which was that supplied by Australia.

If I may, as I often do in this place, I will debunk that theory that says that, if Australia ceased to export live animals, we would be able to replace the trade with the meat market. Let me give you a lesson in current affairs and history. When Australia lost the live export trade to Saudi Arabia some years ago, we had a very active sale of meat—boxed meat and frozen and/or chilled meat—to that country. History records that, when we lost the live export trade, we also lost the boxed meat trade. I come forward to 2012-13 and draw your attention to Indonesia, where, of course, as a result of a decision of Ms Gillard and Senator Ludwig in 2011, we all of a sudden terminated the sale of live cattle to the Indonesian market, thus denying some 69 million low-socioeconomic Indonesian people their right to beef protein.

If you listened to Senator Rhiannon, you would have thought that once the trade restarted under some limited conditions, including dropping the sale of live animals to that market, and there being a continuing demand for beef protein, logic would tell us that we would have seen an increase in the sale of chilled or frozen meat to Indonesia. But of course exactly the history that we saw in Saudi Arabia has been repeated in Indonesia—that is, while the number of live cattle going to those markets has halved, so indeed has the tonnage of beef going to those markets. At a time when the price of beef has increased tenfold, the average consumer, the low-socioeconomic Indonesian consumer who once so heavily relied on the Australian trade, has now been lost.

We now have a circumstance in my state of Western Australia at the moment where, as a result of the drop in the number of live animals that are leaving the state, prices for sheep have dropped dramatically. Those of us who know anything about markets and trade would always know that when a competitor leaves—in this case the live export competitor—it affects the market. So we now only have the one buyer—that is, the meat industry—and the meat industry will never sustain the prices.

In drawing attention again to these remarkably high survival figures for animals that are travelling from Australia to our Middle East and Asian markets, I simply make the point that Australia is the only country in the world that invests heavily to ensure that animal welfare standards in all of our target markets remain very, very high. And should we be forced to leave the live export trade, one can only assume that standards of animal welfare in those countries, countries which we have serviced for many, many years, will only dissipate. I leave the chamber with the message that it is an absolute myth that if we were to remove the live export trade there would all of a sudden be an increase in opportunities and employment in the meat industry around Australia.

Question agreed to.