Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I support this bill, the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023. This bill will amend the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Act. It will expand the office of the inspector-general to provide a focus for animal welfare. I commend the government on practical measures that will improve the welfare of animals subjected to the cruelty of live animal exports.

However—and there is a very big however to this—the government did commit before the election to ban live sheep exports. That's what they did; they committed to that, over a year ago now, and we haven't seen any action. I think it is really important to say that there would have been many people who, because of their election commitment to that, would have moved their vote over to the government. As far as I'm concerned, not acting on this and bringing this bill to the parliament is somewhat of a broken promise. I think we expected more, and we expect to see some legislation that would phase out live animal exports of sheep. It's critical that we do this. If we don't do it now, when are we going to do it?

It was five years ago when we had journalists expose the abject cruelty of this practice. In 2018 I supported a bill by the member for Farrer—those of us who have been here a long time, or some of us, have pretty good memories; I remember that bill—to prohibit the export of live sheep on long-haul routes. That bill was introduced after the shocking 60 Minutes report highlighting the atrocities those sheep experienced, where they were effectively up to their legs in their own waste. They had nowhere to move. They were dying the most cruel of deaths. The bill was a moderate approach to phase out the practice over five years. That would have meant it would have been phased out this year. And what do we have, five years later? We still don't have a ban, and we still don't have a plan. In 2019 I introduced my own bill, which mirrored the member for Farrer's bill with the exception of reducing the long-haul exports over the summer months from four months to three. Aside from the animal welfare aspect of this, value-adding in our own country makes good sense. With respect to these animals, we know their whole life experience. If we are processing those animals here, we have far more control over the animal welfare effect of those animals.

While I support this bill, and it does take some steps to improve the welfare of animals—and you could argue it is progressive—I think the government need to do better here. They made an election commitment that they would do better with respect to animal welfare and long-haul live sheep exports. I don't think it's right for us to just assume that people will forget those images, that people will move on from this. I still receive emails on it. Back in the day, back in 2019, I received hundreds of emails from people—many of them farmers—who said we need to do better. It's smart, it's a good economic decision, it's a good environmental decision and it's a good ethical decision. I urge the government: do better in this respect. Don't go to the Australian people at an election and say you're going to ban live sheep exports, and then, a year later, do nothing with respect to banning live sheep exports.

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