Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong defence of the live sheep and cattle trade in Australia, in particular in my state of Victoria. It is a significant export industry for Australia and a crucial market for our rural sector. It is a $1 billion export industry, making Australia the leading exporter in this field. It creates many thousands of extra jobs beyond the farm gate. As a measure of its importance to the farm gate and the saleyard sector, just imagine some four to five million sheep and some 800,000 cattle being thrown back onto the domestic market and into the cattle yards. You would have a crash in domestic prices, I would say, of greater than 20 per cent. This being the size and importance of live exports to our export industry and to our rural sector, it is amazing, perplexing and annoying that such an industry is in a very unjustified way under attack from extremists, the animal welfare groups known to all—PETA, Animals Australia and the ever publicity seeking RSPCA—that seek to close the industry down.

While the attacks on the animal welfare methods of the industry go back virtually to its origins, a benchmark event was the Cormo Express incident. It intensified the extreme and the outlandish criticisms of the industry. I will remind the Senate of that Cormo Express incident. In 2003 there was a shipment of live sheep left stranded when Saudia Arabia officials rejected its load. The hot sun and inability to unload for some 80 days caused many deaths and stresses on board. But there are certain points to be made about that incident. Firstly, it was an uncontrollable incident that related to the Saudi politics. Our exporters had no direct involvement in creating the incident.

Secondly, regardless of this, the government moved to establish the Keniry inquiry into the incident. As animal welfare matters arose from that incident the industry responded to the Keniry report. That has led to enormous improvements, placing Australia’s live sheep and cattle trade at world’s best practice. For example, a Cormo Express type incident cannot occur again as the protocols and contingencies are in place with other countries, like Kuwait, to unload and yard quickly should a recurrence eventuate. There has been a revision and implementation of new heat stress models and a comprehensive research and development program for exported livestock has been actioned. I note that in the Cattle Council of Australia 2005-06 yearbook it describes that R&D project as ‘the world’s most comprehensive program’.

In short, what was basically a self-regulatory industry is now under stricter government legislative management of the standards and codes. It is all working very well and the proof surely is in the death rates onboard. This has been the definitive benchmark used by the government, the industry itself and the animal welfare groups to ascertain the welfare and adherence to the codes and standards.

I refer to the department’s Report to parliament on live-stock mortalities for exports by sea for the reporting period 1 July 2005 to 31 December 2005. They are quite remarkable results. For cattle export voyages, death rates were 0.14 per cent. For sheep export voyages, they were 0.97 per cent. They are remarkable results on any analysis. Anything less than one per cent is commendable if not stunning, given that anything of two per cent or over must be immediately reported to the parliament and the minister ahead of the official report. These are figures that are less than what would occur down on the farm itself. You will always have certain deaths on board or down at the farm, and these results are highly commendable. I should add that the Victorian port of Portland has the lowest overall sheep mortality rate in Australia.

Yet, in the face of these undisputable facts of improvements in welfare to the highest standards in the world and probably the lowest possible mortality rates you could get, the industry is still hounded by extremists with the aim of closing the industry down by using sabotage and distorted publicity stunts. The latest charade was the 60 Minutes show on 28 February, in which a segment showed cruelty to cattle at abattoirs in Egypt. The assertions and the cruelties which were purported to be shown in the segment were that the cattle were Australian, were being treated roughly, were having their tendons cut and were being crudely slaughtered. If this were true, it would be bad. But it was not true; it was far from the truth.

It was typical of a set-up by extremist animal liberationists who seek to deliberately mislead. They were not Australian cattle, it was not an abattoir to which we send our cattle and the methods of slaughter were not common to Egypt. Rather, the practices are illegal even in Egypt. The whole story was a farce and should never have gone to air. It was a story pitched against a most credible and well-managed Australian livestock industry, but it seems that 60 Minutes and more so Richard Carlton, not surprisingly, decided to put credibility below sensationalism and wrap it up in misrepresentation.

There is no doubt that PETA and other extremist groups seek by any method to close down this vital economic industry. If that segment on 60 Minutes was not enough, only one or two years ago one of their followers took the extreme and dangerous action of contaminating the feed of sheep yarded in the Victorian port of Portland to be shipped out bound for the Middle East. There was a rather strange contradiction between his action of contamination and his intent to protect the sheep. Even though he was charged with the crime, he got off scot-free, such were the loopholes in the law. Yet there was serious economic damage done. His actions of sabotage halted the shipment and caused damage to our reputation as a reliable supplier, let alone to the health and welfare of the sheep.

The industry deserves better because it up to world’s best practice. That is undeniable, and it is a vital industry to rural and regional Australia. Moreover, there is no alternative to this niche market. It is absurd to assert that the same product could be sold and transported packaged. That is not how our customers want it. Culturally, as well as religiously, they want it as a live animal. The meat and livestock industry of Australia reported that when live sheep trade to Saudi Arabia was halted in August 2003, the processed shipped meat was not in demand in that country as an alternative.

The industry deserves to be protected equally from both the propaganda war and the economic sabotage being waged against it. In particular, the states, which have power in these matters, ought to move tough uniform laws with regard to the intent to cause economic loss, so we can send a message to the animal liberationists that they will not get off scot-free and that they are accountable. Currently, the laws are weak and fail to properly protect against sabotage, disruption or violent protestors. We need to support the farmers, workers, business exporters and traders over the extremists, liberationists and plain mad who seek to destroy the industry.