MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE - Albanese Government

10 September 2024

Ms SWANSON (Paterson) (16:00): Firstly, I want to say how proud I am to be the Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture. We work collectively and in a bipartisan way with both members of the opposition and the crossbench. Earlier this year, we were asked to conduct an inquiry into the phasing out of live sheep exports, and I'm pleased the member for Lyons and the member for Hasluck are both in the House with me today, talking about this matter of public importance.

I want to say to the 3,500 people that came along to our inquiry, many more than were here today—but I understand that distance can be a tyranny. They came to the Muresk Institute to hear the inquiry, and I understand it is a concern for the farming community. I want to acknowledge that sheep farmers in the west are concerned about this. I acknowledge that, and I thank them for their efforts and the input they had into our inquiry.

It is now the law that the trade will cease from 1 July 2028, and it won't be revisited. But what our government wants to do is provide certainty. We're not vacillating on this, as those opposite have done with so many policies over the last decade. We have made a decision; we were not afraid to make that decision, but we recognise that there are going to be challenges for the people involved in that industry, particularly in Western Australia. With this in mind, that's why we have offered up the $107 million transition support package, to help individuals and families who are going to make some business decisions and do some planning around what will replace that live sheep export trade revenue for their businesses and families. It's four years away, and we did make a recommendation that, in concert with the Western Australian state government, we look at potentially extending that package. So I do want to say it is important. We get it, and we thank and recognise the farmers who work so hard for not only the Western Australian farming economy but also our Australian farming economy.

I also want to share an interesting statistic. We spoke with Roger Fletcher, who gave evidence to us at that inquiry. He, of course, on the eastern seaboard will be well-known to the people of Dubbo because he has a very big abattoir out there—and he also has abattoirs in the west. I asked him about the export of sheepmeat, and I was interested in how long it would take to process in Australia the sheep currently being exported live. If they weren't being exported, if they were being slaughtered in Australia, how long would it take for them to be processed and boxed up to be exported? The amount of sheep currently going out on boats in Australia could be processed in four days. That gives you an understanding of the size of the industry these days.

We know that this industry is in decline. No matter what those opposite say, these are the facts. We know that we can earn more and we know that we can support farmers with better, more vibrant export markets. The trade minister, Don Farrell, from South Australia, has been working night and day, doing a brilliant job restoring our relationships with Asia, particularly China, and opening up those markets for our farmers.

To close, I received an email from a vet about this. Today, the Leader of the Nationals, David Littleproud, asked the Prime Minister about sheep from Sudan. In this email the vet said to me: 'The move away from sheep exports from Australia should actually see a net global animal welfare gain, as our sheep will no longer be travelling for up to three-plus weeks by sea from opposite seasons. Instead, locally grown and heat acclimatised sheep and goats will be sourced from much closer destinations to the Middle East, some with voyages as short as 10 hours, from Sudan and Saudi Arabia, animals that were never going to be afforded the relative luxury of a pre-stunned slaughter. Also, with our less-crappy ships more freely available, they will most likely displace some of the very old ships in the Middle Eastern region and lead to safer shipping. Thanks again for your work. I value that I can put away all the memories I have of sheep suffering on these unnecessary voyages. Sincerely, Dr Lynn Simpson, live export vet.'

We want to support Australian farming and Australian farmers, and we also want to play our role across the globe in the adoption of better farming practices—and I think that we're achieving it.