With the limited time I have, I want to indicate that the opposition won’t be opposing the Inspector-General of Live Animal Exports Amendment (Animal Welfare) Bill 2023; there are relatively minor changes here. We did have some concerns, when I sat on the Senate committee inquiry into this bill, about ensuring that these changes would not mean that federal government powers would begin to intrude onto state or territory responsibilities on animal welfare. We’ve received assurances from the government and some clarity that that won’t be the case. As I say, this is rather administrative than otherwise, and the coalition won’t oppose the bill.
But it is important, I think, in this space to put on the record that we remain very concerned about the government’s policies with regard to live sheep exports, primarily because of the impact on human beings. The government has given very little consideration to how its policy will impact on Australians, especially hardworking Australians in the sheep industry. Primarily, the impact will be on the Western Australian sheep industry. The most shocking thing here from the government is that they’ve announced that the closure is going to happen, yet they have given no thought to or indication of what support they would provide to people affected by the government’s decision.
It’s hard for me to think of a more callous act or of a previous Australian government that has taken a decision like this to shut down an industry and not even provide any indication of support to the industry that is being affected by the government’s decision. There have been other industries the government has shut down in the past. For example, the tobacco industry was shut here in this country. Parts of the dairy and sugar industries were shut. Some farming activities in the Murray-Darling were shut as a result of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. In all of those instances, there was significant government support provided to the farmers or other affected industries and, in many circumstances, to the broader community that was affected by the government decision. To take a more extreme example, governments across the country shut down industries during COVID for a pandemic. We provided enormous levels of support to those affected by a government decision, in that case, to protect the public health.
We have a decision here where the government are saying—although I don’t accept their rationale—that they want to project animal health and animal welfare, yet they’re not standing behind their decision. They’re not providing support to address the consequences of the decision for Australian families. This is a shocking absence of duty of care to the Australian people. Of course sometimes there are going to be government decisions that not all Australians support. Of course sometimes in government you might not expect support from certain sectors of the economy or society. Clearly the Labor Party do not think they need the support of Australian farmers, given their many actions at the moment attacking the Australian farming industry. But farmers are Australians and, even if they’re not voting for you and you don’t think you need them to vote for you to stay in government, you should be providing them with support as Australians, and you’re not. You’re failing in your duty to support Australian farmers and Australian farming families. By taking a callous action like this and shutting down someone’s industry and livelihood, you are effectively taking away their property and the hard work by which they put themselves in a position of strength for their families, and you are not providing them with any compensation whatsoever. You’re just leaving them out to dry.
As we’ve heard from other senators already, the impacts of the government’s decisions are being felt today. The ban is not due to take effect until sometime in the future. We don’t yet know when. There’s a massive amount of uncertainty that the government’s created here for the sector. But the impacts are happening today, and that’s because people in the market aren’t silly and the countries that take our product aren’t stupid. People who operate currently in Australia are making decisions based on what might happen in the future. Markets are forward-looking. Because there’s a major decision coming forward about the closure of a whole industry, already we’re seeing countries, primarily in the Middle East, seeking to buy sheep and get product from other nations. So they’re taking demand away from Australia already. It is going particularly to South America, where they’ll still get their product. I would suggest that probably the animal welfare standards will be reduced because of this decision, but that’s what’s happening. At the same time, some Australian farmers are taking the decision to get out of the industry early. Particularly in the breeding sector, where their exposure is over many years, they’re starting to sell. Breeders are putting their animals onto the market.
So you have a situation, because of a government decision, where demand for Australian sheep is down and supply of Australian sheep is up. What’s going to happen to the price? It’s going to crash, and that’s exactly what we’ve seen over the past year. We have the ludicrous situation of a government minister, the agriculture minister, refusing to believe that this could be possible. He misconstrued the evidence from Senate estimates the other week, trying to suggest that ABARES somehow analysed this and decided, ‘No, no, there wasn’t any impact from government decisions.’ When you go to the report, there was no such analysis at all. The government has done nothing. They have left Australian farmers high and dry, and it is an absolute disgrace. I’ll have more to say about this when we resume.
