Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I oppose this motion. It is another example of the pressure being put on the government by Liberal and National Party MPs to resume live cattle exports to Indonesia. I do not want the suspension to be lifted. I fear that, if we lift the suspension, the pressure which is now on the industry to lift its game will melt away. The suspension is doing a power of good. We are now seeing a flurry of activity on the part of the Indonesian government and the industry, which is a good thing, taking us towards an end to the cruel practices which were exposed by the Four Corners program.

I believe the Australian people do not want the suspension to be lifted. I see the opposition leader has discovered the idea of holding plebiscites. How about we hold a plebiscite on whether we export live cattle abroad and the opposition agrees to abide by that? Failing that, I urge all concerned Australians to contact members of parliament, particularly their own member of parliament, to tell them that they do not want live cattle exports to Indonesia to resume any time soon. Every MP's and every senator's view matters, but, in particular, tell those Liberal and National MPs who are putting on the pressure to resume live exports that this is a bad idea. Send the emails, ring their offices and go and see them. Tell them the jig is up in relation to live exports. It is time to move to domestic processing. That is the future of the meat industry.

They may well raise various objections to the live cattle exports ban, but these objections are not valid. They may claim that the animals will starve and that there will be an environmental disaster. This is not correct. There are animal welfare standards in this country. People are not allowed to starve their animals or just turn them into the bush. They may claim that the industry will collapse and that people will lose their jobs—not true either. There are abattoirs around Australia, including Townsville, Mackay and Rockhampton, which have spare capacity. Animals can be fattened up and sent to those abattoirs. There are industry plans for an abattoir in Darwin. The Northern Territory government and the industry should focus their efforts on making that happen.

The truth about jobs is that jobs have been lost as a result of the industry focus on live exports to the detriment of domestic processing. In the past 30 years, 150 abattoirs have closed and 40,000 jobs have been lost. It is still going on. Last year 1,000 jobs were lost. They may claim that Indonesia will go elsewhere and we will lose the market. It seems unlikely to me. Indonesia has put out feelers to New Zealand. New Zealand, which, to its credit, has a ban on live animal exports, said no. Last year, global beef production declined. In 2006, the Howard government suspended the live cattle trade to Egypt as a result of media revelations of animal cruelty. The trade was not resumed for three years. The sky did not fall in. The Egyptians bought chilled beef killed here in Australia instead. They may claim that this action will annoy Indonesia and damage our relationship with that country. There is no evidence of that. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered his health minister and his agriculture minister to personally inspect Indonesian abattoirs to improve their animal welfare standards. This is a good thing.

The advice I have received is that there is nothing inconsistent between humane animal welfare standards and halal killing. In any event, religious convictions do not give anyone a licence to depart from basic standards of decency and humanity. You cannot get out of observing basic animal welfare standards by claiming it is against your religion. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant said:

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

He was right.

They may claim that domestic processing is not as profitable as live exports, that there are extra costs, but overall I have no doubt that the meat processing industry will be better off. A study by ACIL Tasman concerning live sheep exports showed a 20 per cent increase in the economic value of domestic processing compared with live exports. Some things are more important than money. We should not seek to make a profit on the back of the torture, misery and suffering of powerless animals. We rejected this argument way back in 1791 when William Wilberforce introduced his anti-slavery bill. We rejected it 220 years ago; we should reject it again today.

See this speech in context