Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go immediately to the opening statement of the policy that Labor took to the last federal election to try and restore some order and seriousness to the show that we've had here this afternoon. Our comments commenced with this statement:

Protecting animal welfare and boosting agricultural profitability aren’t competing aims—they support one another.

The growing demand for high quality food produced in an ethical way means Australia’s agricultural producers must embrace the highest animal welfare standards to stay internationally competitive.

That is where we need this piece of legislation to go, and it just doesn't go there. We've been using the analogy of walking the middle path. I note Senator Rhiannon's comment in response to my contribution earlier on forestry that, if you walk the middle of the road, you end up getting run over. I don't agree, Senator Rhiannon. I actually believe that finding a sensible way to balance competing interests in the best interests of the nation is a good goal to seek and achieve. Instead, we've seen the Left heading off the path, bush-bashing, and we've heard the Right argument heading off in the other direction doing the same thing—both of them completely off track, both of them completely out of touch with the genuine and real concerns of ordinary Australians who want to ensure that businesses, like agribusinesses, can be successful in our regions. But those businesses should not be relying on any form of animal exploitation.

This private senator's bill that's been introduced by the Greens this afternoon, the Voice for Animals (Independent Office of Animal Welfare) Bill 2015, aims to establish the office of animal welfare as an independent statutory authority and seeks to have the CEO responsible for reviewing and advising upon the protection of animal welfare and Commonwealth-regulated activities. The office, as it's presented in the bill, appears only to focus on one element of massive concern: live animal export and the issues affecting the protection of animal welfare and Commonwealth regulated activities. It is far too narrow and it doesn't attend to the realities of modern Australia.

The bill claims that the office of animal welfare will assist its CEO in his or her functions, which include the review, inquiry, monitoring and reporting of the Australian standards for the export of livestock and the export supply chain assurance system, known as ESCAS. Whilst Labor is not opposed to the establishment of an independent office of animal welfare, we certainly cannot support the private members' bill that is currently before the Senate.

For the office of animal welfare to be a success it not only needs to be established by the government of the day but has to deal with the reality that Senator Rhiannon failed to confront: that it does actually have to be supported by the states and territories. Ignoring the reality of the federation—ignoring the states and territories—simply will not resolve complex issues. Putting somebody in at a federal level to lord it over the others is an absolutely unsuccessful strategy to pursue. This bill will not achieve these two very important requirements, and Labor has a very different view about what should happen. In fact, the Labor view was well documented and well distributed prior to the last election. It was a comprehensive animal welfare strategy that Labor took and it outlined a pathway that would provide for the establishment of an office of animal welfare, but in a very different iteration from that which is proposed in this private members' bill.

Labor had a six-point plan for animal welfare, and we sought to boost Australia's agricultural capacity by making it more productive as well as sustainable and ethical. Our plan aimed to attract investment and to grow markets for Australia's agricultural products, because when we successfully do that in an ethical way we grow our community capacity to create jobs for ordinary hardworking Australians. Our agribusinesses, we know, compete in a very rapidly changing world, and we know that consumers and investors alike are demanding the world's best animal welfare. In the contributions that we've had this afternoon from Senator Rhiannon representing the left and Senator O'Sullivan representing the conservative right parts of this place, we've seen a failure to find a way to balance the competing needs in a way that advances the benefit of both the animals and the general community.

I go to a report by the Rural and Regional Affairs Transport Legislation Committee, which looked into the voice for animals bill 2015 and the careful work that was done there. The arguments that have been put forward this afternoon indicate there is no way we can find a way to create best practice, and get both farmers and animal welfare activists into the same room and get a good outcome. Mr Glyde, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, told the committee:

We try in our submission to outline the reasons why we think it is not a simple as that.

He was referring to the conflict between animal welfare outcomes and livestock profitability.

There is certainly a tension between welfare and profitability, but in our experience, if you improve animal welfare outcomes, you have increased productivity and you have improved competitiveness – for us, particularly, as we are a high cost producer and increasingly our markets are demanding good outcomes, whether it is sustainability in an environmental sense or good animal welfare practice or good supply chain management to ensure the quality and healthiness of our food products that we export. That is one of the keys: good animal welfare practice is a key to improve competitiveness.

The Australian Labor Party absolutely understands that. We know that consumers are voting with their wallets, demanding that food and other products are made in ways that match their expectations of animal welfare. The Labor Party is committed to making sure that we win in the country, in our regions and that we also win for all those who live right across the country and care about animal welfare. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.