Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the report for 2005-06 for LiveCorp. Live exports of predominantly sheep and cattle have been a contentious issue in Australia for many years. Indeed, I think over 20 years ago there was a Senate committee report put out by the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare. This was established on the motion of the late Democrats Senator Don Chipp to examine a whole range of things, but this particular report was on the live export trade. The committee at that time made the statement that if you were going to assess the trade solely on animal welfare grounds you would want to get rid of it. Other factors, including economic factors, were such that the committee recognised getting rid of it straight away was not appropriate.

Between then and now we have had some improvements in animal welfare but still very significant problems and a massive expansion in the trade. As this report notes, we get $4.19 billion from live cattle and sheep exports. That is over five years, I might say. I am not dismissing the significance of $800 million or so a year, but it always sounds better to say ‘over five years’ rather than ‘over one year’. It is less than $1 billion a year. I also note that the slaughtered and processed meat trade is significantly greater than that. We have seen time and again over the years, in periods when the live export trade to particular areas has been suspended—usually because of a catastrophe, a scandal or a major animal welfare problem—that to fill the gap there has been an increase in the trade in meat processed in Australia.

We have had all sorts of furphies over the years about how there is no replacement or alternative, how it has to be slaughtered in the Middle East due to religious reasons or because they do not have fridges—all sorts of things. Frankly these are a bunch of furphies. There is a larger trade there that is value added and produces jobs in Australia, but there is not the focus put on developing that. I have spoken to people who are active in this industry who are quite prepared to acknowledge that there is capacity within the Australian market to fill the gap were the live export trade to be phased out. I am not saying that it could be done with the click of a finger and without some impacts. I recognise that it should be done in a way that minimises any economic and employment impacts. But there would be a bigger trade there if the same amount of energy were put into promoting and expanding it. I also say—and this slips off into other topics that I have talked about often—that there are issues with regard to labour force capacity in Australia at meatworks and the like. I am not diminishing those. All I am saying is that it is quite clear that the potential is there for an alternative.

The second thing I want to emphasise in this report, and I quote the chairman’s message, is that animal welfare issues have remained in focus in the previous year. He specifically said that the industry must be diligent and persistent in its response to community concerns on animal welfare and realistic about the expectations it has of LiveCorp in the current climate. The industry is being diligent in response to community concerns, but it is being diligent in trying to belittle, dismiss or discredit them; it is not being diligent in trying to address them adequately. I do accept that there have been some improvements, but they have not been adequate.

We saw footage on television not too long ago of the conditions these animals are sent to in Egypt, for example, which are an absolute disgrace. The last time that happened, the minister had a review, as he always does, and put out an MOU and said, ‘This will fix it.’ There was more footage after the MOU was put out showing that the situation was just as bad. The government does not even bother pretending anymore; it knows it cannot enforce the MOU or adequate standards at the other end and it is just not going to do anything about it. I believe that is unacceptable. I would remind the Senate that the largest petition by a long way that has been tabled in this place in recent years, with 130,000 plus signatures, has been from Australians wanting something done about this trade. It is well and truly overdue for us to do more to remove this unnecessarily cruel trade. The alternatives are there if the energy and will is there. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.