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

It is remarkable that the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Joyce, can resume live animal exports to Iran on the basis that we have entered into an appropriate animal welfare protocol with Iran, when his department is incapable of enforcing the existing animal welfare protocols we have with Middle Eastern countries and is overwhelmed by the breaches which have already been brought to their attention by Animals Australia and other animal welfare groups.

Livestock Shipping Services—LSS—is a likely beneficiary of the opening of the live trade with Iran. Yet LSS is subject to 11 serious ESCAS breach investigations, including six in Gaza and four in Jordan. Even worse, there is a criminal investigation going on over the falsification of export documents arising from the disgraceful debacle which saw 22,000 sheep that were rejected by Bahrain ending up brutally slaughtered in Pakistan.

The criminal investigation could well have consequences for LSS, yet even today LSS is loading a ship in Fremantle to send more cattle and sheep to Israel and Jordan. The animal welfare protocol with Iran will be worth less than a coalition election promise unless this government starts handing out meaningful rather than Mickey Mouse penalties for the numerous breaches of the protocols we have already put in place. We should stick with the boxed meat trade we already have with Iran.