Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) | Hansard source

It's been obvious to me for many months, if not many years, that the decision of this Labor government to ban live exports was a political decision. It had nothing to do with any science and nothing to do with any evidence. Now that fact is also very plain to every Western Australian. This political decision to wipe out an entire industry segment from Western Australia, to wipe out farming communities and the economic base of towns, was made by the Labor government, aided and abetted by the Greens and the other crossbenchers who support this ban, on the basis of nothing more than preferences in the eastern states. That's all Western Australia is worth to this Labor government: a handful of preferences in the eastern states. Every bit of science, every bit of evidence, we have shows that this industry not only deserves to survive but also deserves to be congratulated. It has done and exceeded everything that governments have asked it to do.

Never forget for one moment that the problems the industry faces today—this ideological imperative from the government, this ideologically driven crusade against the live export industry—go back to the events on the Awassi Express, which were cash for cruelty. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, were paid to a stockman from a developing country whose salary was US$350 a month. He was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get footage of sheep suffering. And guess what? He did. One of his shipmates, a person who called him a close friend, described how that footage was taken in questionable circumstances where ventilation may have been shut off. It was cash for cruelty.

Question agreed to.