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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The funding agreement from 2017-2021 between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Australian Livestock Export Corporation goes through many aspects of the work of this industry; from research and development to one issue that we really should have should have got on top of by now, which is the live export trade. Here we see some of the key players, like LiveCorp and Meat and Livestock Australia Limited, and the role that they play. How they see their future is set out in detail in this document in various ways.

This reminds us of the gross failure of successive governments—Labor and Liberal-National—in dealing with this industry. It is where we could so easily have a win-win—a win in terms of ending the extreme cruelty that is involved in the live export trade, and a win for Australia in terms of jobs and the economy, particularly in regional areas. The standard-bearer for those who back that trade is the Deputy Prime Minister himself, Mr Barnaby Joyce. He is out there saying how much effort he will put into ensuring that this live export trade grows—and every time he says that, he is further selling out regional and rural Australia, who have been done over. When this industry was largely the boxed chilled meat trade—which was just getting off the ground—the abattoirs supplied the domestic meat trade in Australia. It really killed that off. So many abattoirs were closed across northern and regional Australia—thousands and thousands of jobs were lost. It was so irresponsible. The Liberals and Nationals really have got so much to answer for on this.

On the issue of cruelty, we need to remind ourselves of how ruthless this trade is. And when I give these figures, it is a reminder also of how unnecessary it is. Every day, thousands of animals are enduring terrible suffering, often dying on horrific ship journeys from Australia to the export markets. In recent years, we have seen some real horror stories about the cruelty that happens when animals from Australia reach the export markets in a number of countries. But the cruelty starts when they get on the ship, often within Australia; I acknowledge that. Those ship journeys are just so extreme: with the stress that it puts the bodies of these animals under, day after day; with many animals subject to a very slow death after enduring great agony with broken limbs; and with their fear of where they are and the distress that comes with being packed in. Across the decades, tens of thousands of animals have also been burnt alive on ships—73,000 sheep in just one fire on the Maysora in 2011, just six years ago. This trade is ruthless. And it is unnecessary.

I want to move onto the other area where we could have a win—as I have said, we could have a win by ending the cruelty. But we could also have a win by expanding the boxed chilled trade in meat from this country—that is where the international growth in meat is. Australia is missing out on it, because of the obsession that people like Barnaby Joyce—and others in his party, and some in the Liberals—have; people who, for various reasons, want to push and push this live export trade that is selling out regional and rural Australia.

A 2015 industry conference was told that the business case for supporting live exports to Indonesia had collapsed. The costs had increased by up to five times in the previous eight years to 2015 to produce a kilogram of beef through importing and feeding cattle than it did to import chilled, boxed, beef. The Indonesian issue was the one that blew up when Prime Minister Gillard was in office. What happened then in Indonesia is a reminder, too. I understand that they have come under enormous pressure, probably from the likes of Barnaby Joyce, but from various groupings within Australia, insisting that part of the deal in the Australia-Indonesia relationship has to include an expansion of the live export trade, when Indonesia itself had a long-term plan to phase out live exports so they could be more independent and have their own beef cattle in their own country. (Time expired)

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

I rise to refute largely what Senator Rhiannon has said, simply because she does not know what she is talking about in this particular space. As is known in this chamber, I was a livestock veterinarian on vessels for some years in the 1980s. Contrasting with what Senator Rhiannon has told us, in fact the live weight of most animals actually increases significantly in the voyages, particularly to the Middle East. We all know from our experience as human beings what happens if people are under stress, and indeed I know as a veterinarian that if animals are under stress the first thing they do is stop eating. So when a consignment ends up being about 115 per cent of the weight it was when it left its port of origin, one would hardly say that that is extreme stress.

I have made the point here again and again, and I will continue to make it. The point is two-fold. First of all, if people are genuinely interested in animal welfare standards, they cannot stop at Australia's borders. They must be interested and committed right through to our end markets. Senator Rhiannon knows that I have made this statement so many times: of the 109 countries that export livestock around the world, we are the only one that now and ever has committed people and resources and money to the training of personnel in our target markets. Indeed, I could give this chamber an hour of illustrations of where the welfare standards of locally bred animals and those sourced from those other 108 countries are improved dramatically as a result of Australian present in those markets.

Contrary to the comments that have been made about the meat trade versus the live animal trade, do not worry too much about hypotheticals—let me give two illustrations. Saudi Arabia: we had both a meat trade and a live export trade to Saudi Arabia. When we lost the live export trade, you would have thought the meat trade would have gone up, on the logic of my colleague Senator Rhiannon. In fact, we lost the meat trade. In 2011, when the then Labor government decimated the live export trade and brought to their knees most of the cattle industry across the north of Australia, the number of animals exported to Indonesia that year halved. On the logic of those opposite and Senator Rhiannon, what would you think would have happened to the meat sales? You would think they would have doubled, wouldn't you? Do you know what they did? They halved.

There has always been a strong parallel in this country between live exports and meat exports. They have always been complementary. The live export trade is the underpinning for producers in this country, be they sheep producers or beef producers. Because there is competition in the market, because the buyers either may be buying for the live export trade or for the meat trade, it underpins a price for the producer. I am very pleased to see now that we are at long last seeing a dramatic increase in the capacity of our herd. I expect we will see our national sheep flock starting to rise, so that we can once again meet those market demands. We provide the best transport. We lead the world in the feedlotting of cattle, the land transport of cattle and the transport to ships. The shipboard management undertaken by Australians and those engaged in the trade is the best in the world. The rest of the world follows us, whether it is animals for breeding purposes or animals eventually going to be processed in those markets.

Yes, we have had a challenge in terms of increasing the standards in the meatworks overseas. I begged then Minister Ludwig—when he banned the trade at the direction of Ms Gillard, the then Prime Minister, and at the direction of the 457-employed adviser to her—to not ban the trade to those abattoirs that were internationally accepted by OIE, the international standards in animal welfare. But, of course, the decision was made for political purposes—nothing to do with animal welfare purposes—to ban the entire trade and deny millions of low socioeconomic Indonesian people their right to access protein. That is where the market started for us in the early 1990s. It was the need for low-socioeconomic Indonesian people to get access to protein—and it was denied them. With the cost of boxed meat out of Australia, where the cost of processing an animal is $400 versus the cost in Indonesia of about $80, there is no way in the world those low socioeconomic Indonesian people would be able to afford boxed meat—though the high-end restaurant trade and the hotel trade could. I congratulate the government for the initiative that it has made in the meat and livestock space.

Question agreed to.