Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Colbeck said, we are the only country that has ever invested in animal welfare. I can give you example after example of where the welfare of animals in our target markets has improved as a result of what Australia is doing.

But what was the impact? We completely destroyed our relationship with Indonesia—and up to 69 million low-socioeconomic Indonesians used to get their protein from Australian beef. As a result of that, we had mass bankruptcies and we had suicides. As I predicted, and as has regrettably happened, we had massive starvation on the rangelands through 2011-12. Previously I have stood in this place and said that, if we have a drought and/or bushfires, we are going to have a disaster of monumental proportions. Did any of those animal activist groups or the RSPCA express any interest at all in the wellbeing of those animals that died of starvation on the rangelands? No, they did not. It is the vision of the RSPCA to be the leading authority in animal care and protection. Well, they went missing between 2011 and 2012 in the north of Australia—and I regret to say that.

If someone purchased a pup or a kitten from an RSPCA shelter and subsequently brutalised that animal, would anyone say it was the RSPCA's fault'? Of course not. But in the live export trade, if there is a failure of animal welfare somewhere in the Middle East, somehow it is all of a sudden the fault of the industry here.

Ms Sarah Ferguson, from the ABC, appeared at a Senate inquiry when we were examining this issue. She had been in the Northern Territory. She insisted that she had provided footage to the people she spoke to from the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association. Regrettably, I have evidence from the past president, Mr Ken Warriner, that Ms Ferguson did not show him the footage and neither had she seen the footage. She was not honest in her answer to me. Secondly, in regard to a cattle station that she named in her show, six times I offered her the opportunity to confirm that she had named that station and each time she said, 'No, we did not.' — (Time expired)