Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) | Hansard source

I'm very proud to stand in strong opposition to the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024, along with every single Liberal and National Party senator. This is a bill that seeks to shut down a world-class industry, an industry that is leading the world in animal welfare standards and the closure of which will lead to animal welfare standards dropping across the world. The delivery of culturally appropriate protein from here in Australia to the Middle East will cease as a result of Labor's shameful, blatantly ideological and reckless legislation. It is legislation that should be rejected by the Senate and by the parliament.

The coalition stands firmly and steadfastly with our primary producers, including the livestock industry, with our truckies, with our shearers, with the fodder suppliers, with the families, with the children, with the doctors, with the supermarkets and with entire regional communities where the social and economic impact of this callous political decision will be felt, throughout regional Western Australia. And it will have flow-on effects over on the east coast.

Let me make it very clear from the outset that we are opposing this bill. We have always opposed this bill. A future coalition government will overturn this piece of legislation. That's why, today, you have men and women from Western Australia meeting with crossbenchers and meeting with MPs, trying to let them know the devastating impact this will have on their communities so that they can actually be fully cognisant as they walk in later tonight to vote on Labor's guillotine of this legislation. I want to make sure every single Western Australian person knows that it is the coalition—the Liberal Party and the National Party—who will overturn this legislation. If we're elected, we'll totally back the industry and reinstate it.

Labor's policy to shut down the live sheep export industry fails to acknowledge the importance of the sector, the supply chain of people and families and our trading partners in the Middle East that rely on this industry to ensure that families in faraway places have culturally appropriate protein to eat. They don't want chilled meat. They've made that very clear. Yet Labor think they know better. Labor think they can tell Middle East trading partners what's good for them. It sounds like policy of old, of many centuries ago. Here they go again, thinking they know better than people in their own countries.

The live sheep industry employs thousands of Western Australians and has delivered important and comprehensive animal welfare reforms in recent years. Australia has the highest animal welfare standards in the world, and this should actually be a source of national pride. Our sheep get off those boats fatter than when they got on. I'll tell you what: unhappy sheep don't put on weight. On unhappy sheep the wool doesn't grow. These are the types of measures that we now use in this world-class industry to measure the health of these beasts as they leave live sheep transports.

But Labor doesn't care. Again, it's because this is ideologically driven to win votes in east coast capital cities. It is west coast farmers and regional communities that are paying the price for their political ineptitude. Labor should be backing and supporting our farmers instead of attacking and destroying live sheep exports. We have faith in the industry and confidence that, through the reforms that we brought in when we were in government, we now lead the world. We're not going to cut and run. We won't leave the rest of the world to take up the market that doesn't live up to our animal welfare system. Don't kid yourself. Do you think suddenly whole nations are going to change the way they like to purchase and eat just because Australia decides not to export live sheep? No. Ethiopia will fill that trade. There will be other exporters with a lot fewer ethical standards. They just load the sheep on and get paid for how many are alive at the end. That is the system that will be put in place as a result of Labor and the Greens teaming up to shut down this industry, to destroy the lives and livelihood of Australian intergenerational farmers.

It's not just the farmers. It is the truckies. So many on Labor's side talk a big game about supporting the truck industry. Well, now's your chance. Now's your chance to say, 'I support the trucking industry.' If you sit in support of this legislation, you will not be supporting the trucking industry in Western Australia, and they know it. That's why over 64,000 Australians have signed the petition to keep the sheep industry here, on shore. They've raised over $400,000 to overturn this ban. They are coming after Labor marginal seats to change the government at the next election. It is not in the national interest to shut this industry just to get votes against Greens in inner-city east coast capitals.

The coalition have a strong history of improving animal welfare standards, and we made sure we reformed the industry in such a way that it now leads the world. We didn't put our heads in the sand. We did what good governments do: when you see a problem you actually work with industry to solve it. You guys—weak and distracted government. That's what you're delivering on so many levels and in the agriculture portfolio. It's no less than that. You're just cutting and running. We worked with veterinarians and with industry, and we reformed the methodology of how we assess the success. We've got the heat stress test. We actually measure the panting of individual sheep on voyages to make sure they're not stressed. They get more stressed sitting in a paddock in many climates here in Australia than they do on live export ships. But you don't want to hear the facts, and that's what's so offensive.

The minister promised, in Senate estimates, we would have a Senate inquiry. Instead we got a quick and dirty two-day inquiry from the other place, and thousands of submissions to that inquiry haven't even been uploaded into the public domain. It was, as we like to say in this place, very quick and dirty. It was a sham of an inquiry, and you did not hear the gamut of the impact. It was so that you could say, 'Oh, yes, we consulted.' Did you actually hear them? Did you actually take the time? No, you didn't.

Last week we voted twice in this place to put this legislation, which is suddenly so urgent, to a Senate inquiry. The legislation doesn't phase out this industry till 2028, but suddenly it's so urgent that you're guillotining debate on it today. You're shutting down senators from Western Australia and other National Party senators, who have their heart and soul in the region, and coalition senators, who, one and all, care about this industry, from even having a say on it. What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid of the sunlight, transparency and accountability it would bring? Why do you want to shut out the people who are going to be impacted by this? We say that a lot in this place, but you're actually shutting their business down, and you're not even giving them the respect of letting them come and have their say. It wouldn't cost you anything. Your legislation will still pass; you've got the deal with the Greens. The legislation will still pass, and the exports are going to be phased out, but you can't even spend a couple of months giving the men, women and children of regional Western Australia the courtesy and the respect of having their issues brought to the floor of the Senate and considered in a public forum.

It suits you to deride this industry. It suits you to say that farmers don't have a social licence to produce food. You won an election, but it doesn't make you God. This chamber is set up to bring to bear the gamut of political persuasion in our great country. We have the far left, the far right and everyone in between represented in this place, and we all bring to this chamber the gamut of political thought in the country. That is why democracy should be respected and people should be respected. The Senate inquiry that we will be voting on later today will actually ask the people impacted about what will happen to their local supermarket, their local footy clubs, their trucking industry and their farming enterprise. And it'll ask our trading partners. Why don't we ask the Kuwaitis? Why don't we ask the Middle East? Why don't we ask Palestinians, who receive live sheep exports as a result of the hard work of Western Australian farmers? Why don't we ask them what the impact will be of the government's policy?

The shadow agriculture minister has put out a call—and I completely agree with him—to Labor Senator Payman to cross the floor and stand up and vote not just for WA but for the food security into Palestine, which the live sheep industry actually facilitates. You can't like half of the debate. Senator Payman, sheep are now a humanitarian issue. Farmers want to keep providing quality sheep to the Middle East, and, in turn, the Middle East wants our sheep because they know Australian sheep are the best quality. Senator Payman has the chance to meet with groups such as Keep the Sheep, the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, Sheep Producers Australia, WA Shearing, Wool Producers, WAFarmers and the Livestock Collective. They're all in the House today. I urge Senator Payman, and other senators, to meet with this delegation to hear firsthand.

There are a lot of negative stories that get around that are not based in fact or truth. It's very easy, when you are out of sight, out of mind, for Australians to not really understand what goes on in the paddock, on a ship or in a market that doesn't fit the narrative of animal activists, the Greens and others, whose actual end goal is to shut down livestock production in this country. That's the end goal. This is just another step in the march. So I would urge not only Senator Payman but also other senators to consider seriously giving voice. We know that your substantive views mean you'll probably end up voting for this legislation when it's slammed through at 10 o'clock tonight without being properly debated and discussed, but at least give these communities a say. It's right for us to ask: what's next?

The Greens have made it clear that they want to shut down the live cattle trade. The last time we did that, we saw suicides across northern Australia. We saw our Indonesian trading partners very concerned that they'd lost food security, given the amount of cattle that head over there. It's a billion-dollar industry. That crazy decision cost the Australian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars—when the government finally owns up to paying them out as instructed through the courts.

We know that Labor doesn't like agriculture. We know that the Greens want to shut down agricultural livestock exports in the main. So stop talking a big game on trade and stop talking a big game on climate change because the seven million of us who don't live in capital cities and don't vote for you are still Australians. We do the heavy lifting economically. We don't agree with you politically, but we love our country, too. We're very proud of what we do, and we deserve to be able to continue to do it. We won't be supporting the bill. (Time expired)