LIVE EXPORT — ANIMALS AUSTRALIA REPORT
236. Hon COLIN de GRUSSA to the Minister for Agriculture and
Food:
I refer to the minister's proposal yesterday to ban
live exports from Western Australia for three months of the year.
(1) Does the
minister agree with the Animals Australia commissioned report that banning live
exports for three months would cost on average $2 000 per farmer?
(2) Does the
minister concede that the Animals Australia report is flawed, given its view
that the state's live sheep export volume is less than half of that
outlined in the department's ''2017 Western Australia's
Agrifood/Fibre/Fisheries/Forestry Industries'' document?
(3) What
protections has the minister considered putting in place for sheep farmers
should she push ahead with pursuing a ban of live export from Western Australia?
(4) Is the
minister willing to invest state funds in providing more abattoir facilities to
increase domestic sheep processing capacity?
(5) If yes to (4), what is the anticipated
contribution of the state government to facilitate a growth in processing?
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN
replied:
(1)–(5)
I am not familiar with the Animals Australia–commissioned report, so I am
not going to pass judgement or give my view on whether it is right or wrong.
But what I do know is that the member's colleague in the federal Parliament,
the federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, is actually accepting
that what is going on at the moment is totally unacceptable. He said, ''I've
seen that footage and I was absolutely shocked and gutted'', as were
farmers across the state. He said that it cannot go on.
Several members interjected.
The PRESIDENT: Order! I want to hear the
minister respond.
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN: Our point is that vessel after
vessel has taken sheep from southern ports in Australia in the winter and gone
into the Gulf in high summer. There has been such a clear spike in the rate of
death and mortality on those vessels that we believe something has to be done.
It happened in 2016 and the federal department said, ''Just take a few
sheep off.'' Then it happened again in 2017 and the department said
again, ''Just take a few sheep off.'' Now that the federal
minister has been forced to confront the reality, he is saying that that is
absolute rubbish and that it is not acceptable and something different has to
happen. The federal minister has said—we are happy with him taking that
approach—that there is going to be a short, sharp review of what can be
done to handle this issue of mortality in the months of July and August in
particular, and he is talking about air conditioning, maybe. We are open to
considering air conditioning, but I suggest that people actually go and see
some of the vessels being used in this trade and question whether this will be
feasible at all. Of course, it would have to be refrigerated air conditioning,
because a big part of the problem is that the ships are repeatedly going into
areas of very high humidity—94 per cent humidity. If we are going to
deal with this problem by way of air conditioning, we will need to be talking
about refrigerated air conditioning. I would have thought that the cost of
doing that would be absolutely prohibitive. Reducing stocking densities by 40 per
cent might be part of the solution.
Point of Order
Hon COLIN HOLT: I am
wondering about the conciseness of the answer.
The PRESIDENT: There is
no point of order. The difficulty here is that people ask multi-part questions.
The minister is providing a response. Yes, it would be very much appreciated
for the minister to stick to the point and provide an appropriate, timely response.
I am sure that that is what she is going to do.
Questions without Notice Resumed
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN: I see at every point that
members do not want to actually confront the issues at play here, whether it is
a ministerial statement or whatever.
We will be prepared if they come up with a way of air
conditioning these vessels, but we are not confident that is possible. We will
hold off judgement until we see what comes out of the federal government's
report.
In terms of abattoirs and the capacity to deal with any pause
in live exports, we have been talking to WAMMCO, which can operate two shifts.
It is operating only one, but it would prefer to be operating two shifts. But
even on a single shift, its quiet months are May to September, so it absolutely
would have the capacity to do that. When we look across the board at Fletchers,
WAMMCO and V&V Walsh, we see that our processors are only running at about
60 per cent capacity. It is clear that we have the capacity in the abattoirs,
if it was necessary to do this, if it turns out not to be financially viable to
air condition the vessels that will be going to the Gulf in summer.