live exports

John Hassell. The ban on live sheep is inherently unfair and Australians can see it. Roger Cook can see it. Let’s hope for the Albanese Government’s sake they recognise it too before the next election. Underestimate Australia’s farmers at your peril.

Here we go again, yet another example of a live export case in the courts that has fallen over because the emotional rhetoric does not match up to the facts.This is what happens when animal activists and activist ministers come together and attempt to use the legal system to end a legitimate trade.

Occasionally I come across a speech in parliament by one of our elected representatives that needs to be shared loud and wide.   The following was made by Western Australian Liberal Senator Slade Brockman, President of the Senate, ex farmer, lawyer, PGA staffer and tireless defender of the people who make their income from primary industries. All those who oppose the live export trade should take the time to read what he has to say.

National animal welfare standards consistent with those applying to imported Australian-bred cattle have been announced in Vietnam this week, as part of the Australia-Vietnam Beef Cattle Symposium ... Vietnam has become a significant partner for the live export industry in the past decade, importing almost two million head of cattle in that time.

I recently received a copy of a letter sent from the Federal Department of Agriculture to a farming family in Beverley in response to their letter to the Minister for Agriculture, Murray Watt, asking him to explain the basis of the government’s policy to phase out live exports. Unfortunately, the Minister was too busy searching for the magical new markets for mutton that he promises exist, which will replace live export sheep, to have the time to put his own name to a reply, so he delegated the response to his loyal department.

We all know that the federal Labor government has set itself the impossible task of reducing carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, plus setting itself a target of achieving 82 per cent renewables across the power grid ... Hence the recent announcement by federal anti-agriculture Minister, Murray Watt, offering up the livestock sector as one industry which could be made into an unwilling sacrificial lamb to the climate change gods by imposing rather than hoping for emissions cuts.

Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud is calling on Labor to release the findings of an Independent Panel Report into the ban of live sheep exports ... “Minister Watt didn’t have the courage to travel with the panel and look farmers in the eye himself to say he was stopping the trade – so the least he can do is release the report”: Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud.

Am I missing something or does this Federal Labor government have a problem with the Middle East? ... The government’s decision to reject extra Qatar Airways flights into Australia gives us a hint of what they are thinking ... Similar to live exports, the Government can give no coherent reason as to what makes up this social licence ...