Peter Rundle: Labor’s live export betrayal will not be forgotten at the ballot box

The Federal Labor Government has finally announced its impending sentence for WA’s live sheep export industry. In just four short years, an industry worth $100 million will be heartlessly ripped from regional WA, leaving farming families, transporters, livestock agents, feed suppliers, wool buyers, livestock vets, and regional communities in dire straits. Make no mistake, this decision will have lasting ramifications across regional WA, and despite the Premier’s rhetoric, the impacts of this decision are already being felt. And it has already become abundantly clear the promised $107 million support package will not meet the current and future needs of the industry in WA, with just $64m set aside for sheep producers, the supply chain, and regional communities. The remaining 40 per cent of the support package is existing Federal funding for ongoing programs like Austrade, rural counselling, and “funding to review the standards and guidelines for land transport of sheep”. This last remark is particularly ominous for WA, and suggests Federal Labor will not only be content with banning the live shipping trade but is also clearly considering making changes to the transport of sheep to the Eastern States — the last market left available to WA producers doing it tougher than ever. Anthony Albanese, Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, and the Federal Labor Party have utterly sold out regional WA in exchange for shoring up support in inner-city electorates where they are increasingly struggling to remain relevant. And the abject betrayal that has emerged from this decision — that an entire industry was traded to secure a sneaky backroom preference deal with the Animal Justice Party — truly demonstrates Labor has turned its back on the agriculture sector. The same AJP boasts it will come for the live cattle export industry next, wants to ban the use of 1080 baiting to stop feral foxes, ban the shooting of pest animals, and end horse and greyhound racing. This fringe political party and its radical ideology attracted just 0.6 per cent of the vote at the last Federal election — yet even those slim pickings have proved irresistible to a desperate Labor Party. Meanwhile, the hardworking farming families and the agricultural communities and industries, which generate hundreds of millions of dollars for Australia’s economy, and which employ thousands of regional Australians, have been left devastated. Since the Federal Labor Government announced its intention to ban live export in 2011, the Nationals WA have proudly stood alongside the industry. We have been calling for Labor to rethink their decision, to put sense before ideology, and to put the livelihoods of regional families, businesses and communities ahead of a few votes from radical activists. The Federal Government has been emboldened by the support it receives from its WA Labor counterparts. Premier Roger Cook and Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis have been complicit through their complacency. While the WA Labor Government may claim it has been advocating for the industry, this is nothing but a lie. Following the Federal Government’s betrayal of WA, agricultural organisations lined up to condemn Senator Watt. Yet when I asked the Premier if he would do the same, he instead told State Parliament: “We know that Murray Watt has the best interests of the industry at heart.” For more than a decade, since the Federal Government announced its intention to ban live export back in 2011, WA Labor has sat silent. Now, when we are literally playing for sheep stations and support is needed more than ever, the Premier has lost his spine and lined up behind his Federal colleagues. Freedom of Information requests made by the Nationals exposed there was absolutely no communication between the offices of the Premier, our State agriculture minister and the Federal agriculture minister during a crucial decision making period last year. No letters, no emails, no phone calls, not even a text message. It is a complete and utter disgrace. But our State Labor Government didn’t just sit there silent. It laughed in the face of the industry. When the Nationals asked questions in Parliament, Labor members responded by making animal noises and loudly bleating across the chamber. And on the eve of the Federal Government’s announcement of the live export ban, WA Labor Party MPs released a committee report exposing their anti-agricultural agenda. A report into alternative proteins lambasted WA’s livestock industry, pointing the finger at agriculture as the source of all our worldly problems — from cancer to climate change, and even drawing links between eating meat and toxic masculinity. While the report could be dismissed as ideological drivel, it also offers a terrifying insight into the true values of the WA Labor Government. A Labor Party which is utterly opposed to agriculture, in any shape or form, and which is totally disconnected from regional WA and reality. Next year, WA voters will have a chance to send a signal to the Labor Party, with State and Federal elections due. WA farmers, regional communities, and the hardworking men and women involved right across the supply chain will have their opportunity to vote for their future State and Federal Governments. I am certain Labor’s betrayal of regional WA and our agricultural sector will not be forgotten at the ballot box. Peter Rundle is the Roe MLA and Deputy Leader of the WA Nationals.