John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once again we have the Greens telling our farmers how we should look after our land and feral animals. I find it amazing, Senator Rice talking about the Greens and the environment. I tell you what the Greens do to the environment. With all their power and sway over the Labor Party, they lock up land for national parks, lock it up and leave it. There is virtually no hazard reduction burning, no grazing allowed—you can't have hard-hooved animals in national parks. Of course, the deer and goats and wild pigs walk around national parks in ugg boots to protect the environment, I'm sure. Sorry for my sarcasm. It rains, the grass grows higher, the fuel levels get higher and higher, the lightning strikes and we burn the national parks and kill the animals. That's conservation, Greens style.

Here they are once again, telling us how to run our farms. Is it any wonder that the farmers loathe the Greens. The Greens hate farmers. They only hate miners worse than farmers. When we moved to Inverell in 1979, we bought 7,100 acres. It was moving with rabbits, and I mean moving. We ran around 6 to 6½ thousand sheep and probably 30,000 rabbits. I wonder how the Greens would have suggested we reduce the rabbit population? You couldn't use a rabbit trap—that could be cruel. Go out and shoot them one by one? They'd breed faster than you could produce the bullets. We put 1080 on the whole property—7,000 acres. We cleaned the rabbits out. We went around and picked up the dead ones, because most of them, when they get 1080 poison, go down a rabbit warren or into a hollow log and you can't find them. We never lost a sheep dog. That was our main concern—that we didn't lose our dogs. If foxes died, I couldn't care. If wild pigs died, I couldn't care. If crows died, I couldn't care either, but of course the crows are very clever birds: they just vomited it out and survived. It was a bit different in the old days with hallucigen. That one was a bit smart for the crows, and we didn't have the crows then picking the eyes out of our sheep when they got down. But the Greens wouldn't understand this issue of looking after animals. The real environmentalists are the farmers, looking after the animals and their land as best they can. Sadly, it's pretty hard for many of them to be green when so many are so far in the red, but hopefully that will turn around with rain, low interest rates, a low dollar and the better commodity prices that we've worked so hard on.

Widespread rabbit plagues are another thing we brought to this country that should never have been brought here. How do the Greens and even Senator Hinch suggest we get rid of them? What about the wild pigs? How do we get rid of the wild pigs? My wife and I have a problem at home with wild pigs. We went out one night, and we could hear four or five wild pigs circling little lambs. The little lambs were about a week old. The wild pigs had cut them off from their mothers. Luckily, when we drove over the contour bank at about 10 o'clock on a cold night they cleared off. We saved the lambs; they ran off to their mothers, to the ewes, to be protected.

This is the point I make: we have these feral animals causing so much loss of production to our country as far as wool, mutton, lamb and beef goes, and yet the big issue is the cause of the environment. Senator Hinch, I will gladly take you to our property and show you where the pigs are nosing up the soil; they're opening it up and exposing it to soil erosion. Rabbits: there are pictures of dryland farms from years ago, from before the 1950s and when 1080 was not allowed here—we didn't have it. The country was so bare. The wind was blowing the topsoil away. And when it did rain, of course the soil was washed away because of the erosion caused by rabbits, and their digging of their warrens and holes et cetera. They do huge environmental damage, and so 1080 is essential to get rid of rabbits.

Wild dogs are in national parks and on farms. Sadly, they're spreading far and wide across our nation too. When I talk to graziers at Tenterfield, many are going out of sheep because of wild dogs. We hear about the wild dogs out in Queensland. They went out of sheep up there because the dogs simply killed the sheep, mauled them to death. Senator Rice talks about painful deaths. She should go and have a look at the sheep when they have been mauled, when they've had the wool pulled from out of their sides and out of their shoulders, by wild dogs. Then the flystrike hits the sheep. Is that a good death, is it?

You talk about deaths. I know what the Greens are like. I was on a Senate committee hearing at Byron Bay. It was quite amazing. We were talking about sharks. We had two witnesses that day who told the committee the life of an animal is equal to the life of a human. How outrageously ridiculous. They were saying if you're driving down the road in a B-double—65 tonnes all up—down a steep hill and a kangaroo comes out on one side of the road and a three-year-old boy runs out on the other side of the road, you should contemplate hitting the boy and saving the kangaroo. Absolutely outrageous! That is out of tune, that animals are as equally important as human life. I have seen it with the Greens; this is how they behave.

The call is to ban 1080; to phase it out; to let the rabbits breed back to the huge populations we saw in the early 1900s; to let them destroy the environment, eat out the native grasses, create barren land, cause soil erosion; and to let them reduce our production of beef and sheep et cetera, our food production, and to starve the states, starve the country and starve those people we feed overseas. Is that the plan? The biggest problem with 1080—I've been tempted to use it in recent months, but I fear for our sheepdogs. I haven't used it. Sure animals do die, sadly, but not often. We've seen an inquiry by the APVMA saying non-targeted animals have died because of 1080, because it stays in the meat for a long time—until it literally rots away. It even stays in the bones. That is one fear I always have for our dogs: that they'd eat it. I can assure you our sheepdogs at home are very much loved.

But what do we do about the feral pigs? Foxes? Yes, we've got PAPP for foxes and wild dogs. That might be working well, but 1080 is a good, cheap way to destroy those feral animals that are causing so much damage to our farmland and our farm production. And you can't get it easy, I tell you, Senator Hinch; you can't get it easy. I've bought 1080 on many occasions, going to what was then the PP Board—the Pasture Protection Board—and dealing with the 1080 rabbit inspector. We'd buy the carrots crushed up, no poison on them. We'd go and feed the rabbits and they'd clean all the carrots up. Two days later we'd feed them again; we'd put out the poison carrots and then we'd go and pick up the dead rabbits.

It's amazing how not having rabbits can restore the country. Rabbits can graze the country down to about a millimetre high. They call them 'underground mutton'. They'd even eat underground, if they could. They destroy our native grass, our native pastures and our agriculture production. People are saying, 'Do away with it.' No, don't do away with it. Be careful with it. It is a very dangerous poison. I'm well aware of it. It's very dangerous. But we have strict regulations. To access 1080, don't think you can just walk into the hardware shop and buy it. It is certainly not like that. It is strict to get to it. They have to know who you are. When you prepare your property for 1080, you have to ring all your neighbours and tell them you're putting it out. You've got to put signs up on your fences on your property saying, '1080 poison being applied on this property.' You must work with your neighbours to look after the animals and see that the animals you are targeting are the ones you are killing.

It's a slow and painful death, Senator Rice says. Go and see the sheep that are ripped apart by wild dogs and tell me whether that's a quick, pain-free death, Senator Rice. It is appalling. That wouldn't worry you, Senator Rice. The painful death of having 1080—

Senator Rice interjecting—

That's what you said—it's a slow and painful death. Yes, it may be, but what about the animals being destroyed? What about the lambs when the pigs are ripping them apart? That's a quick, peaceful death, is it? Give me a break. You have no idea. I support the retention of 1080. I support the huge restrictions on access to it. Of course we must do things as landholders, as far as notifying the neighbours is concerned. It's up to us to see that our sheepdogs are protected. Keep them in the yard, don't let them out, pick up the dead animals—the dead foxes, not that sheepdogs are keen to eat dead foxes, I can assure you, but they might. You only need one sample and your dog is in serious trouble. Senator Hinch, you say to phase it out. What will replace it? You might have PAPP for wild dogs and foxes. What are we going to use to control the rabbits and the pigs? That's the big question.

As I said—I'm repeating myself—the enormous environmental damage these animals are doing to our land is just amazing. The loosening of the soil and accessing the soil, causing erosion when it does rain. Sadly, that's not a worry at the moment because of the big drought we're in, but the rains will come, as sure as I stand here. We know the rains will come; we just can't tell exactly when. I wish I knew. We'd be in a good position to manage our farms very well if we knew when it was going to rain, but one thing we do know is that the drought will end, the rains will come and the drought will return. I don't know when. This is about managing our environment, looking after our land, doing the right thing and keeping the feral animals where they should be—dead.

Debate adjourned.