Senator BARTLETT (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (3:41 PM) —by leave—I move:

This is a response from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon. Warren Truss MP, to a resolution of the Senate of 12 August. That resolution, which was obviously supported by a majority of the Senate, noted the international declaration for the welfare of animals that had been developed at an intergovernmental conference in the Philippines earlier this year. It was pleasing to note the Senate's support for that direct declaration on animal welfare, which included support for the development of international animal welfare standards. It is interesting to note in the minister's response that the Australian government has, apparently, actively supported the development of international animal welfare standards within the organisation that has responsibility for international animal health. The minister also states that:

I guess that aspect of the minister's response is welcome, but it is hard to balance that with this minister's ongoing encouragement of and support for the live animal trade, and particularly, at present, the live sheep trade. Senators would be well aware of the controversy and concern that was expressed by many people in the public going back over 20 years now, but most recently just a month or so ago with evidence that appeared on 60 Minutes of dramatic mistreatment of animals—not just sheep but cattle as well—that were exported to the Middle East from Australia.

The point that needs to be made is that all of that live animal export trade is licensed by the Australian government. The attitude, I think, in the past has been that, once it has left our shores, it is not our responsibility; it is the responsibility of the owner of the sheep to ensure the welfare of the animals. That, quite frankly, is not good enough. Australian farmers, Australian transporters and Australian abattoirs have to comply with codes of practice—sorry, I should not say that, because they do not always have to comply with codes of practice, but there are codes of practice that have been developed that certainly they are encouraged to comply with. It very much undercuts the willingness and the ability of Australian operators to comply with codes of practice to do with animal welfare standards here in Australia if we are exporting animals to places that do not have to comply with similar sorts of standards. Similarly, if we are authorising the transportation of vast numbers of sheep and cattle in conditions that clearly do not meet basic animal welfare standards, we can hardly expect our own producers to meet those standards themselves.

When the controversy regarding the outrageous animal cruelty involved in the live animal trade arose following the 60 Minutes broadcast, the government and the industry, through Livecorp, said: `These problems are being addressed. The standards are much better now, we've got it all sorted out. Everything is fine and it is not a problem any more.' This has pretty much been the standard response from the industry and the government any time a piece of evidence has come to light showing the outrageous cruelty involved. But what have we seen in the last few weeks? Yet another absolute outrage in relation to the live sheep trade—a vessel with around 57,000 sheep that have now been at sea in appalling conditions for close to six weeks, with about three of those weeks being spent in the Middle East in temperatures above 45 degrees celsius.

Not only are the conditions appalling and completely unacceptable; but the response of the industry body, Livecorp, and the minister's office has been to clamp down, to not provide information and to once again bring the veil of secrecy down over the reality of what is happening. There have been reports that the shipment was rejected not only by Saudi Arabia but by a second port. That second port is still unknown and unnamed by either the government or the industry, and there is a recent report that there now may be a third port—also unnamed—that may be willing to take the sheep for something close to nothing. This is yet another example of a trade that is completely unsustainable in animal welfare terms.

It is worth pointing out, before the usual response that comes from the industry that this is a billion dollar trade with lots of jobs involved, that there is actually a refrigerated meat trade that is worth at least four times that amount and that the exportation of live animals costs jobs in Australia, particularly in the slaughterhouses throughout Australia. Indeed, just in the last couple of days there was a straightforward statement by the industry that the number of sheep being slaughtered in Australia has been dramatically reduced because of the drought and that a number of sheep have had to be euthanased as part of that, yet at the same time we are shipping tens of thousands of them per boat to basically die in atrocious conditions.

We had the suggestion from the RSPCA last week that things were so bad that all the sheep should be euthanased—which is a nice idea, except that the ship does not have the facilities to humanely euthanase over 50,000 sheep. So an absolute animal welfare outrage is occurring, with very little concern from the government and with very little indication that they are going to start turning away from their efforts to continue to expand this inhumane trade in live sheep and cattle which not only continually generates unacceptable levels of suffering but also costs Australian jobs.

I raise that matter because it is very much in contradiction to what the minister has said in his response to the Senate. If this government is actually supporting the development of international animal welfare standards then it is going to have a pretty hard time sounding credible about that when one of its major examples of international interaction with other countries is in the utilisation of a trade that is demonstrably inhumane. It is worth noting that live exports of sheep and cattle to Europe have been banned for many years. Indeed, the transportation of animals is probably the No. 1 animal welfare issue for many European residents even in terms of small distances by ship or by truck.

Consider the distance that the sheep and cattle have to travel if you add the initial transportation, in either trains or trucks through outback Australia, to the feedlots in places like Fremantle and then the three- or four-week journey—or in this case about a six-week journey—on ships in horrendously crowded conditions to the Middle East. When they arrive there, they are offloaded, often very inhumanely, and put onto more transportation that is even less suitable and trucked across more countries to slaughterhouses where the conditions are so unspeakable as to not be appropriate for general consumption through a chamber such as this. That is the level of inhumane treatment that we are willing to subject these animals to, and it does not match what this minister says about the government's commitment to animal welfare.

A parallel could easily be drawn to the complete inability of the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison, to act on the huge public outcry about the significant trade in cat and dog fur into Australia, despite evidence of massive cruelty to those animals in many countries in South-East Asia, where they are kept and then slaughtered. That evidence has been provided quite clearly by the Humane Society International to the government. Minister Ellison said two months ago that it was a matter of priority and that he was developing an options paper with three other ministers. One of those ministers is Minister Truss, and I would suggest that the government's inaction in that area can be sheeted home in part to Minister Truss as well as to Minister Ellison. So whilst the response from the minister sounds very nice, it does not in any way comply or concur with this government's actions, as opposed to their words. I suggest to the Senate, given that we supported the resolution relating to this issue, that we should continue to follow up on it and keep a close watch on the government to see that they do become more serious about an issue that is of great concern to many Australians.