Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to highlight the importance of the sheep meat and the sheep wool industry in my electorate—in fact, across rural Australia, being one of the most significant industries this nation has ever had. It is a continuing industry and a renewable industry. The sheep wool industry has been the backbone of rural Australia and its economy. In fact, it is true to say that in the early days of European settlement Australia rode on the sheep's back.

With changed economic circumstances and many producers wanting to diversify their economies, we have seen a decline of the sheep industry. It is not just the diversification; west of my electorate, wild dogs or dingoes mixing with domestic dogs have really brought the industry to its knees. Since the early 1990s there has been a slow reduction of up to 80 per cent of the population of sheep in Central Western Queensland in my electorate. In that area of my electorate it has been estimated that wild dogs cost producers something like $11 million in lost production every year. That is a very, very conservative estimate. I would put it higher, but that is one of the figures that a committee has identified. If a multiplier effect is used, that is a $50 million loss of money that would normally circulate through communities and towns due to jobs that the sheep meat and wool industry generates.

I have had discussions with producers and with a committee working on this issue to look at how a strategy can be put in place for producers to go back into the sheep industry for all the right reasons. What is holding them back now is the continual incursion of wild dogs into Central Western Queensland, a premium area for sheep wool and sheep meat. Without an investment—what they would like to see is a check fence—we will not see many producers going back into sheep.

With the government producing an agricultural white paper and with there being a desire to develop Northern Australia, I want to see a strategy for pastoral Australia that will enable those areas to regain the capacity to produce wool and sheepmeat. It will require investment in a check fence—or a dingo barrier fence, as we have known them in the past—in Central Western Queensland. The committee have put together a good proposition, and they do need money for that. It is about developing and sustaining rural communities where there are towns, people, schools, police—whole communities. Without this, I fear there will be a continual decline in the population of many rural country towns in the west of my electorate. I am working on it. I believe in the check fence. I am going to do all that I can to get an investment, supported by government at state and federal levels, so that we will see a check fence become a reality.