Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's a scary pattern of behaviour starting to emerge from this government. Every day, we see more and more examples of our primary industries being slowly and systematically but nonetheless fatally strangled by this Labor government and its ill-conceived, unconsulted-on policies.

This week we saw another example of this, with the guillotined bill to end the live sheep export trade, and they wouldn't even have a Senate inquiry. They wouldn't let the farmers, the shearers, the truck drivers, the vets and the regional communities put their story on the record—a story that would have demonstrated that Australia's live sheep trade has animal welfare standards that are the best in the world. Instead, the government's happy to stop this trade and have countries with no standards supply animals to these markets—markets that, by necessity, can't take chilled meat. To add insult to injury, the government offered a support package of less than $15 million a year. They spent more on a Mad Max film than they will on the 3,000 farmers that are going to be impacted by this.

But it's not just live sheep. They're shutting down our world-class fisheries, forcing Australians to buy fish from fisheries with no sustainability controls. The water buybacks that are being pursued in the Murray-Darling Basin are completely destroying communities like my home town of Renmark in South Australia. So where will Australians source their clean, green fruit and vegetables to feed their families? That's right: fruit and vegetables will be imported from countries that do not have the same environmental standards as we do here in Australia.

The minister for agriculture should be renamed the minister for no agriculture, because that's what's going to be left after his watch. Clearly he and this Labor government do not care about our farmers and the agricultural sector, and the events of this week are just another sad episode in the destruction of a sector that has underpinned the Australian economy for over 200 years. (Time expired)

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Whish-Wilson, you have the call. Please show respect and listen in silence.