Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I'm disappointed that the tone of the debate on this important matter of public importance has descended to political talking points provided by the minister's office that really don't reflect the reality of what has happened in the last week. We all, of course, agree that biosecurity is very important. We agree that the beef industry is very important. But what we obviously can't agree on is the importance of transparency.

I was absolutely shocked last week to see that a long-held decision to protect Australia's beef industry—and our biosecurity measures in that regard—was being upended. It is true that the US have been able to send meat to Australian shores and to the Australian market since 2019, based on their having changed their practices to provide traceability of their animals from birth through grazing and processing through to Australia. This is an important point. This is the point that Australian farmers, Australian livestock agents, Australian feedlots and, finally, Australian processors have to comply with.

What has changed is that we are now looking at a break in that transparency of traceability for stock. It could be coming from Canada, it could be coming from Mexico, or it could be coming from a further-south American country. Until we have satisfaction that that supply chain is clear and transparent, we owe it to the Australian beef industry to be able to demonstrate that. Last week, the beef industry were told on Wednesday afternoon that they would receive a briefing. On Thursday morning, they received the review report—at the same time as the statement went out. The initial statement from the department said that applicants could still apply for an import permit, which was not what the government then said—that the borders were open and that we could import beef that had come through the US processing system. It is extraordinary; what the department is saying and what the government is saying are two quite different things.

All that we're asking is that we should respect the people who will be most impacted by this decision. One group is the Australian beef producers—the graziers across Australia. But what about the beef processors? Beef processing is the largest employer in regional Australia. It's the last great manufacturing industry that we have in agriculture. Those men and women work right across the country. They deserve an answer to this question, and, of course, Australian consumers deserve an answer.

At the same time that this announcement was made, there was an outbreak of flesh-eating disease in Mexico. I'm just asking that we have an ability to stop, to pause, to not trade off our industry's agreements in trying to get a meeting with the American President, and to just say, 'Are we all truly satisfied?' I'm asking that we maintain the same sorts of protections that the Australian sector has to maintain. Are we going to truly protect our borders?

We heard a lot of rhetoric from the Labor members about what they were left with and what's happened. Well, in the three years that they have been the government, we have seen no pull-up on the movement of fire ants and we have seen the further expansion of varroa mites, which will mean the very real risk of lack of pollination for crops, as well as native flora, this year. These are very serious issues. I don't have confidence that, once we have disease in this country, we have the capacity to stop it. In the 1970s, I lived through the great shooting of stock to manage tuberculosis and brucellosis in the far north of this country. But we no longer have the frontline resources of the lands department and those people on the ground. So I think that this deserves transparency and I think this is an important matter.