Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about an issue that's very close to my heart. As many in this place would know, I'm a passionate advocate for agriculture, particularly agriculture in my home state of Western Australia and particularly due to my personal experiences, on a family farm, with the livestock industry and the live export trade, a trade that is vitally important to communities across regional WA.

As those interested in this issue would know, a number of months ago there was a COVID outbreak amongst the crew members of a sheep carrier, the Al Kuwait. It was meant to depart ahead of the northern export moratorium but unfortunately, due to the outbreak of COVID, the ship was delayed. The exporter, to its credit, understood the importance of continuing the trade and worked very hard to ensure that the voyage could be completed safely. It was granted, eventually, an exemption that allowed the vessel to depart Fremantle on 19 June.

Tonight I am absolutely pleased to report to the Senate that, despite the voyage taking place during the Northern Hemisphere summer moratorium period, the animal welfare outcomes reported from this journey were exceptional, and that is contrary to some of the nonsense we have heard from activists about this particular voyage. In fact, I have the independent observer's summary report in front of me and I will, if I have time, read a small part of that later. To give you the details of the journey: out of the 33,341 sheep aboard there were just 28 mortalities recorded on the voyage, a rate of 0.08 per cent. It was a 99.9 per cent delivery success rate. Importantly—and I think this is the key point—none of those 28 mortalities were attributable to heat stress.

While some have campaigned relentlessly against this industry important to regional Western Australia, this voyage is evidence that the trade can continue to be carried out humanely and in accordance with our world-leading animal welfare standards. I've said it in this place many times and I'm going to say it again: we do not just export livestock; we export animal welfare standards. This government understands that this trade is the lifeblood of regional families, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. Across the chamber we must always remember that this trade is absolutely vital to the food security of many of our friends and trading partners, particularly in the Middle East but elsewhere as well.

Last week I was lucky enough to join my good friends Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor, and Steve Martin, who is a Liberal candidate for the Agriculture Region in the upcoming state election, on a live export roadshow across the Western Australian Wheatbelt, visiting such places as Darkan, Kojonup and Katanning, to update local farmers. We were joined on that by Holly Ludeman, a young vet who has been an absolute champion for the industry. She has been instrumental in forming what was called The Sheep Collective and has broadened out to be called The Livestock Collective.

One of the things that Holly showed us on that roadshow was a time lapse video aboard the actual ship involved. During that period the heat on board the ship did rise above a wet-bulb of 28—in fact, I think it got to 32 at one point during the voyage. I would encourage everyone out there who is listening to this and who is interested in this trade—whether you are for this trade or if you are against it—to go and have a look at that video. That video very clearly demonstrates the humane way in which those animals were transported, even during this summer moratorium period.