Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise, as I have before in this place, to speak of an issue of enormous importance to the agricultural communities and regional areas of WA, and therefore of great importance to our entire state. That, of course, is the proposed ban on live sheep exports. Labor has a long record of putting Australian farmers last, and that's particularly true in Western Australia.

Recently, both the Albanese and the WA Cook governments have demonstrated that this shameful legacy is still alive and well. A few months ago, in June, the panel appointed to investigate how to implement this live sheep export ban completed its consultation process. In doing so, it ignored the loudly voiced, totally legitimate concerns of thousands of people across Western Australia. There were 4,100 submissions, 800 handwritten notes, and town halls packed full of anxious farmers who received the panel during its consultations in towns in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions of WA. The WAFarmers Vice President, Steve McGuire, summarised the sentiment that characterised these community consultations when he said that the export ban was 'purely a political decision, not based on science or facts'.

Let me now spell out these facts, the facts that Labor has chosen to ignore. Australian live sheep exports comprise a $92 million industry that employs 3½ thousand people across Australia. More than 80 per cent of those jobs are based on my home state of Western Australia. We are the world's seventh-biggest exporter of live animals and we account for around five per cent of the world's trade. This is a significant sector of our economy by any measure. What we are witnessing here is the wilful dismantling of an industry that provides the livelihoods of thousands of hardworking farmers and their families. As our regions continue to struggle with interest rate migration to cities and the challenges farmers face on an everyday basis, how can we justify legislating additional pain and grief for these Australians? They are battling the cost-of-living crisis in exactly the same way their city counterparts are.

Many of the reasons the Albanese government has laid out for this ban are easily debunked. One justification has been that this is a popular measure, yet one recent large sample size survey found that just 29 per cent of Australians agreed with phasing out live sheep exports, meaning almost 70 per cent don't. Some argue that the practice of live exports is a moral dilemma and there is no alternative but to shut the industry down. Notwithstanding the existence of statutory bodies, such as LiveCorp, which regulate the standards of animal welfare during export, as well as the fact that 99 per cent of sheep exported by sea made it safely to their destination in 2022, it follows a simple logic that if the ban is implemented the global market will fill the gap. The likelihood is that this would involve far reduced animal welfare standards than would ever be acceptable or permitted in Australia.

The Albanese government has failed to listen to farmers, failed to put their livelihoods first and failed to explore more nuanced solutions to this important issue. As I observed earlier, the WA Labor government is no better. Former premier Mark McGowan, his replacement Roger Cook and their relevant ministers have also failed to play their part for regional WA and those who rely on what happens there. These are our farmers, and the state government has turned its back on them. Mark McGowan said he 'could not work miracles' in preventing this ban, while Roger Cook ignored calls to petition for the ban to be overturned at the Labor federal conference held last month. Mark McGowan and Roger Cook think it is too hard to stand up for WA farmers. If WA sheep farmers cannot rely on their Prime Minister or their Premier, who can they rely on?

We must end this conscious disregard for the wellbeing of our farmers and stop what is best described as an ill-informed sleepwalk into this ban. They rightly expect governments to legislate for them too. I implore Labor at all levels to start doing the right thing by regional West Australians, in particular regional farmers and their families.

Senate adjourned at 19:49