Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026
Ms PENFOLD (Lyne) (13:03): I welcome the opportunity to speak today on the government's investment in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. I thank the member of Paterson for her words regarding the impact of the terrible weather event in May this year on primary producers across the Mid North Coast and Hunter regions, and my thoughts and prayers continue to go out to them.
They're still very much struggling with the aftermath. Many can't get onto paddocks because they're still too wet. So there's a long way to go for farmers.
But today I want to focus on the simple fact that the Albanese government is failing agriculture and failing regional Australia. Labor's first term in government was one defined by ignorance, neglect and incompetence—ignorance in particular, because this government and recent Labor governments never take a 360-degree policy perspective on agriculture. It's one sided, activist led and anti primary producers.
There's no better example of that than live exports and the live sheep export ban. I'm more familiar with this issue than most, having been the chief executive officer of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council from 2012 to 2016. I came into that role six months after the 2011 live export ban and I worked with the industry through the implementation of the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System and the changes to the trade.
The impact and the threat of that decision lives with us today. The changes that the industry made back then were hard fought. Out of 130 exporting countries, Australia still remains the only country that regulates animal welfare from the farm to the point of slaughter through the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock and the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System.
One of the things I noticed during my time running the live export industry was that the government never truly understood why we have live exports from Australia. Understanding why this trade is so important, not only to Australian primary producers but to the markets that we supply, is a critical issue, because there's clearly a cultural differentiation. I know that many people in Australia are used to going to a supermarket or a butcher and picking out some meat.
If it's in a cellophane pack in a supermarket, they think that is fresh meat. They trust the process. But in the Middle East, Indonesia and other countries they don't have the same view.
In my time, I had the privilege of visiting a number of abattoirs in the Middle East and Indonesia and I saw a father and a son come up to a pen of Australian merino sheep and select one of those sheep because it looked healthy, and they translate that to the quality of the meat. That is not something that we understand here in Australia, but we need to respect the cultural differences that other countries have before we make decisions on banning and threatening other country's food security.
The other impact that the live sheep trade and the live export trade have had is on training in animal welfare. In the Middle East, a lot of the workers in the feedlots and the abattoirs came from the Subcontinent. They didn't have education.
They were often the lowest-of-the-low workers. With our training programs, we actually showed them respect and value for the first time in their lives. Can you imagine what it feels like the first time somebody says to you, 'You've done a great job.
I value what you've done,' and how that changes your practices? That's the sort of impact that we had, yet with this ban that has now gone in the Middle East. There's going to be none of the impact that Australian exporters have had.
What will happen instead is that the sheep will be coming from other countries without the same standards and without the same concerns. The impact on Australian sheep producers is extensive, and no amount of compensation will ever make up for the impact of this ban. Allowing this policy to be implemented sets a precedent for any lawful agricultural industry, so my question to the minister is: which industry will Labor sacrifice next?
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