RUSH TO BAN LIVE EXPORT A FLOCKING DISGRACE

The Albanese Labor Government showed their contempt for hard-working Australian farmers as they pushed through legislation to abolish the live sheep export trade in Canberra this week.

Federal Member for Dawson, Andrew Willcox, said this decision will have “catastrophic consequences” across Australia as the crossbench has already confirmed they will be coming after the cattle export trade next.

“It’s clear now that the Albanese Labor Government wants Australian farmers to flock off, this current government doesn’t want them here,” Mr Willcox said.

“They have decimated our fishing industry in Queensland, they are now set on destroying the sheep export industry in Western Australia, and soon, they’ll be killing off the cattle export industry right across Australia.

“The amount of misinformation and disinformation being pushed by this Albanese Labor Government on a topic and an industry that they don’t understand is absolutely abhorrent.

“We heard speeches from the Labor Government and the crossbench which were dripping in sanctimony and ideology, but how can they have any idea when they don’t leave their inner-city seats and actually talk to the lives that this decision is going to destroy?

“This decision by Labor, Greens and the crossbench is a political stunt to secure inner city votes and has absolutely nothing to do with animal welfare.”

As part of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture for Australia, Mr Willcox travelled to Western Australia for the inquiry into the ban of live sheep export, alongside 5 other Federal Members from various political parties, to hear from farmers who were going to be affected by the decision.

“While Dawson does not have sheep farmers within the electorate, we have a large horticultural industry, sugar cane and cattle. So, if there was an issue with any of these industries the committee would travel to Central Queensland to attend an inquiry into those as well,” Mr Willcox said.

“In Western Australia it became clear that these farmers, who have been working the land raising sheep for up to six generations, and are concerned about their livelihoods and their welfare, and rightly so.

“This is an industry that acknowledges the incidents of the past and has evolved to be the best in the world when it comes to the live export trade. So, for Labor and the Greens to use a scaremongering rhetoric, they are deliberately misleading the Australian public.

“I have toured these ships; I have seen firsthand how these ships are set up to cater to the needs of these sheep. The entire business model for this industry is how many sheep get to the other side alive and healthy. So, who on the face of this planet would knowingly destroy the very thing that ensures they are able to put food on the table and feed their family at the end of the day?

“Not to mention, the survival rates for sheep on these ships is 99.85 per cent, they’re actually better off when they’re on the ship than when they’re in the paddock, but you won’t hear the Labor Government telling the Australian public that, will you?

“And if the Labor Government think that meat processing facilities will start opening as a result of this decision then they’re even more ignorant than I thought.

“There hasn’t been one meat processing facility built in WA for 30 years, and when they have been built in other areas in Australia they have closed almost as soon as they were built.

“The reality is that the importing countries of our live sheep want them alive for a reason. They have religious reasons, they don’t want it frozen, so they’ll go somewhere else to import it that has far lower animal welfare standards than Australia does.

“The complete disrespect that the Albanese Labor Government has for Australian farmers beggars’ belief,” Mr Willcox said.