Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, no doubt you, like many Australians, heard last week about the horrible treatment of Australian cattle in Vietnam. It reminded me of other incidents that the Australian parliament has dealt with where Australian cattle or livestock have been mistreated. I am reminded of February 2006, when 60 Minutes showed Australian cattle being mistreated in Egypt. The then agriculture minister, Peter McGauran, actually halted the trade to Egypt before the 60 Minutes program had even finished. Obviously, Australian governments need to respond, where they can, when Australian cattle are being mistreated. It made many people in my electorate upset, and they took the time to contact my office—Lianne from Tarragindi, Terry from Eight Mile Plains, Cynthia from Graceville, Fiona from Oxley and Christine from Sherwood, just to name a few. They were horrified at the reports but then further appalled when they saw the response of the Minister for Agriculture, who said, 'This is not our concern.'

Every Australian grazier who turns off cattle would want them to be well treated. Australian cattle and sheep producers are humane and respectful and have good systems. Obviously, in a perfect world we would have all of our livestock slaughtered in Australia under safe, humane systems where we are also creating more jobs by adding value to the meat. Sadly, we are not able to achieve that. I know that, particularly, with some of the cattle being turned off in the north-west of Australia, when you are 5,000 kilometres away from the abattoir at Dinmore it is just not practicable, especially with our transport costs and labour costs. Nevertheless, we should be doing all that we can to make sure that our cattle, our sheep, our goats and our horses—any livestock that we send overseas—are treated humanely, whether they are for breeding or for slaughter.

I was proud to work with the then Minister for Agriculture, Joe Ludwig, and many of the others when we developed a much stronger check and balance—the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance Scheme, or ESCAS. It makes sure that the movement of our livestock is monitored and regulated all the way along the supply chain.

I have a family background in the meat industry going back three generations. I know that the killing of animals is not something that everyone condones, but we must do it humanely, swiftly and, obviously, as quickly as possible. The concerns that have been raised about the mistreatment of the animals in Vietnam makes me realise that maybe we need to provide some of the expertise that we have from those small slaughterhouses in Australia and export that to the other countries. Not every animal slaughterhouse is going to be geared towards the chilling of meat; some will be for domestic consumption. (Time expired)