Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence) | Hansard source

What's mutton? Mutton is not likely to be found in slick city restaurants or supermarkets in Marrickville or the CBD of Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. I asked a few people this week if they knew what mutton was, and I got a lot of blank faces. This bill, the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024, is to appease inner-city interests, without any regard for the impact in Western Australia or for the Australian sheep industry generally outside that state's borders.

Mutton is intensely red meat with a strong flavour. It's sheepmeat from an animal that is older than a year—ideally, around three years. Australia produces about 170,000 carcass-weight tonnes of mutton, compared to 540,000 carcass-weight tonnes of lamb, so there is much more appetite for lamb—much, much more. What happens under this ban to all that excess mutton meat, when Australians I've spoken to are not even aware what mutton is, let alone having it on the menu tonight?

Australians love their lamb. It's lamb—tough, tender or trimmed—that you will find at your local supermarket or butcher, not mutton, because Australians consume about six kilograms of sheepmeat per person per year. It's a different story, though, if you live in Afghanistan, Algeria or the Middle East, including Syria. In those places, they relish a meal of mutton, which makes up the great bulk of Australia's live sheep exports. What will happen to those merino sheep, bred for the insatiable clothing industry for their fleece until it's no longer a viable option to sell the fleece? What then happens to those mature animals with this ban? Some could end up as pet food, but most will just be destroyed, and it will be farmers who bear the loss and the cost.

Australia's first live sheep exports were from Western Australia to Mauritius and Singapore in 1845. Last year, live sheep exports by sea increased by 22 per cent, or 177,000 head, to nearly 600,000 head. That's not an industry in decline on any measure. This ban, this transformation of the industry, has been without consideration or regard for the implications for the whole sheep industry, not just for Western Australia. Those who know the industry—the farmers, the feedlots, the breeders and the towns that support the industry's workforce—know that this ban will be devastating and will change their lives and their towns forever.

The Australian sheep-farming industry is worth more than $6 billion a year. It comprises nearly 20,000 agricultural businesses that employ people and contribute to gross state product and gross domestic product. My home state of South Australia accounts for about 15 per cent of the nation's 70 million-plus flock of sheep. I spoke with one of South Australia's largest sheep farmers, who runs some 150,000 head of sheep on his 130-year-old family property—generations of people who know the sheep industry. For them, this is not just about money; it's their livelihood, and it has broader implications over the border. I'd listen to them rather than the Australian Greens and the Albanese government, whose only engagement with sheepmeat is at the supermarket or the dinner table.

But what do I know about sheep? Not much now, but in a previous life I had to know how to shear one, muster it and do all the stuff to them that's needed to take care of them. That was a long time ago, so I don't pretend to be an expert, but I know enough to know what I don't know and when to ask more—much more, much, much more. That's why I asked some stakeholders in the industry with decades of intergenerational knowledge. It's the least one should do when you are shutting them down—their lives, their farms and their businesses. I heard that removing the export option for farmers can only have a negative impact on livestock prices across Australia more broadly as supply increases. There's been something like this before, I heard, though related to mulesing, where Australian growers told their customers what they had to buy. It didn't work then. It came today with a warning that this approach is a recipe for disaster. One farmer said that he had no confidence this would have the impact that it is intended to have, because its ignorant architects haven't thought this through.

Yet again, this overpromising, underdelivering Albanese government is acting without looking at the whole picture. Of all its promises, this is the one it should have broken because it will break sheep farmers. You can't ban live sheep exports and not consider the impacts outside the farm gate and at the state border or the impacts not just at the export point but at the import point. Have the implications for those countries who currently rely on this trade even been explored or understood? The industry has undergone significant change and done what has been asked of it. This will do nothing to change demand. The demand will simply be met by others.

It is crucial to recognise that the live sheep export industry employs shearers, truck drivers, fodder suppliers, livestock agents, producers and maritime workers. All of these areas, the workers within them and their families are affected by this bill. For towns to flourish, they need commercial sectors to flourish, and the removal of a billion-dollar industry is an antithesis to this goal. Without the sheep export industry, schools in those regional towns will slip into decline. There's not been proper consultation with anyone who is directly affected by this, despite the significant impact of this enormous change. There will be an impact on transport businesses, agricultural supply businesses and grain stores, to name just a few.

Why so much secrecy when those most affected engage in the debate? The Albanese government only published 668 of the 13,000 contributions that were provided to the committee. It was a sham consultation. It left hundreds of submissions from members of Sheep Producers Australia, a significant opposition group, unpublished, never to see the light of day. So much for the Prime Minister's pledge for greater transparency in government and leaving no-one behind! You left a whole industry behind.

In question time, Minister Watt continually references the independent panel consultations, but the terms of reference specifically precluded any discussion on the policy itself. How's that transparency? Instead, it acted as if the ban was a foregone conclusion, asking not whether to phase out live exports but how to phase out live exports. That's not community consultation. That's not transparent. It's a joke: a sick joke at the expense of the farmers, and they're not laughing. The joke's on them. An inquiry that wasn't rushed in the Senate, the house of review, would have been an important step towards understanding these impacts on the community and those most affected.

We've already seen in the other place the impact of proper community feedback on this bill—even a little community feedback. Independent member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, was in support of the bill when it was first raised in the House. But after meeting with stakeholders in her electorate and hearing the grievances of the tens of thousands of farmers negatively impacted by this ban, she changed her mind and voted against the bill. It was disappointing to see the government refuse to interact with the community like Ms Chaney has. Yet again, the Albanese government is acting with its blinkers on and not actually talking to those directly impacted by this bill.

A 40-year veterinarian with extensive live animal export experience, whose last voyage was in November 2023, stated in his inquiry submission that he was 'disgusted by the lies and deceitful tactics used by those with little or no firsthand experience or knowledge of the live sheep export industry who are trying to shut it down'. He says the reforms made have resulted in the industry's current performance not losing but gaining the social licence to continue operating. It has done the work.

This does nothing but continue the Labor Party's prolonged attacked on the Australian farmer. The Labor Party and Australian Greens have real form on this. Last year, the Albanese Labor government pushed the water buybacks bill through the Senate. Ultimately, opposition to live sheep exports is an ideological obsession of the Labor Party. When they were last in government, under Prime Ministers Gillard and Rudd, the Labor Party forced legislation through parliament suspending the cattle trade with Indonesia. It took the coalition government lifting this ban for the agricultural sector to return to its full capacity. Don't get it wrong: the Albanese Labor government are not pushing this bill to protect the welfare of sheep; they're pushing this bill to further advance their attack on Australian farmers and to curry serious favour with the Australian Greens, their coalition.

I echo the sentiment of the coalition's second reading amendment: ending live sheep exports is shortsighted. The bill maligns the Australian livestock industry. It neglects to admit that Australia has the highest standards of animal welfare in the world. To do this won't change demand. The demand will just be served by others. Any productive, successful, viable, long-term industry in Australia might be next.