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

There's a shadow hanging over the agricultural industry, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. A recent survey right across Australia found that in the east the most important things happening to farmers were global economic conditions and the weather. These are pretty usual things that farmers see affecting them year to year. In the west, it's a completely different story. In the west, the most serious thing that farmers had to face was the policies of state and federal Labor governments. The most serious consideration they had on their agenda was state and federal Labor government policies. One, in particular, will have devastating consequences for my home state of Western Australia and especially the agricultural industry. That is the government's policy to ban the export of live sheep.

We have a delegation in the building from Western Australia, from right along the supply chain. It's not just farmers. We have the sheep producers, we have the wool producers, we have the shearing industry association and we have the livestock transporters association, but it's not just those groups that are affected. It's also the shed hands, the vets, the agronomists, the stockies, the feed producers and the equipment manufacturers. The flow-on effects of this Labor policy to ban live exports in my home state of WA will be extraordinary. It's not based on any science. It's not based on any evidence. In fact, it's based on a set of circumstances from 5½ or six years ago, which have been shown to be highly dubious and which the industry has responded to magnificently. The industry has responded—why won't the government? (Time expired)