Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. Australia's biosecurity and our agricultural sector have today been thrown under the bus by the Albanese government. Without any consultation with Australian farmers, Labor has lifted the biosecurity import controls placed on US beef. Labor's contempt for Australian farmers, made very clear over the past three years, continues in its second term. In Western Australia we're used to our farming sector being deliberately ignored. Just ask our sheep producers in the west, who have been decimated by this Labor government's ban on live exports. Australia's beef industry is worth in excess of $75 billion per annum to our economy. Meanwhile, our export market sits at more than $15 billion.

The biosecurity import controls relate to herds brought across the US border from Canada, Brazil and Mexico. It's finished in America and labelled 'US Beef'. There are a range of exotic pests and diseases prevalent in these countries which could cause untold harm to Australian herds if they get here. This is a risk no Australian government, beef producer or consumer should ever play russian roulette with. There has been no consultation with beef producers or the broader farming sector. Farmers and the Australian public only found out about this rushed decision in today's newspapers. It's shameful, negligent, dangerous and an abuse of power. This decision may win favour with the US President, but, again, it defines our Prime Minister as weak and willing to sacrifice Western Australia and the broader farming sector on the altar of his ego.