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

I'm a senator from Western Australia and I grew up on a family farm which, for most of my life, has been in sheep production—including for live export. And that is why I say: 'Keep the sheep.' Everyone from the city to the bush should say this loudly: 'Keep the sheep.' If you love a lamb chop on the barbie, you need a strong and diversified sheep industry; you need to say: 'Keep the sheep.' If you want to support all our hardworking farmers across Western Australia, say: 'Keep the sheep.' And if you want to stop Labor's attack on Western Australia, you need to say, loudly: 'Keep the sheep.'

This attack on farming in Western Australia is an absolute disgrace. Even Labor's own report, the report commissioned by their department to inform them on the closing-down of this trade—and I do not support the shutdown of this trade—said that the industry needed eight to 12 years to phase out the live export component of this trade, to allow sheep flocks to be rebalanced away from an export focus. And how long have the Labor Party given? Four years—less than half the minimum time that the experts said was required. In terms of compensation, they have given a pitiful $100 million, when the close-down of the cattle trade for just 11 days—an 11-day shutdown, not a permanent ban—under the last Labor government cost that industry over a billion dollars.