Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024. I can't agree with much of the conclusion Senator Rennick just reached, but I do appreciate very much his reflections on the value of farming life and the value of agriculture from a community and a family perspective. It's a long time since I've been engaged in farming activity, but I did as a kid. I did through most of my adolescent life, not in the sheep industry but in the cattle industry. I too share Senator Rennick's—I don't think it's unfair to say—romantic view about how important that kind of life is and what that means for families—the kind of hard work that farming families engage in, particularly on family farms. And I agree with him that many more young people should be exposed to hard work on farms, fencing and working with livestock in particular, because it is an honourable life to be engaged in farming.

I don't agree with Senator Rennick's conclusions about the future of live exports of sheep from our west coast. I can't agree with him on that subject. Some of my disagreement with that is founded in my experience of what decent animal management practices are and what proper animal husbandry is, and it is informed by my engagement with people in the farming community who have a very different view to Senator Rennick's about the future of the live export industry for sheep. There is a strong view in the farming community, no matter what our colleagues in the National Party say, about decent animal husbandry practices. That's the truth. It's not a universal view, but there is strong disagreement across the agricultural sector about whether or not this industry should have a future.

I was sitting in my office reluctant to contribute to this debate, but then I heard Senator Canavan's contribution. There I was, sitting down with my feet up, and he said: 'Why do industries have to watch election results to see if their business is still viable? That's no basis to build a productive economy. That's no basis to encourage people to invest, to build a business and to take a stake in this nation.' That's what he said. What extraordinary hypocrisy! Obviously, the Labor Party has been not just to one election on this issue but to a second election on this issue, where we won government.

I'll get to the hypocrisy, Senator Canavan. Don't you worry about that!

I'll just build up to it over a little bit of time, Senator Canavan. But I do assert that the Labor Party won government with the very clear understanding in the community amongst not just people who strongly supported a ban on live exports but also people in the suburbs and the regions who understood exactly what it was that the Labor Party stood for. In fact, we recorded a historically high vote in the state of Western Australia. The truth is that this policy remains popular, despite all of the carry-on and the misrepresentations of those opposite. It's an industry that is in strong decline and has been declining more strongly every year. The reason I say it's hypocrisy is that this comes from the same government, informed by previous iterations of Senator Canavan's old pals at the previous Productivity Commission, that pushed the car industry out of Australia. The then government shut the car industry down. They closed the industry, and 40,000 people lost their jobs.