Labor’s Agriculture shadow minister, Kerry O’Brien, seemed to have gone a bit too far when he suggested on Landline that live exports might end if animal abuse could not be curtailed.
"...if it comes to the point where the Australian public do not
accept that animal welfare concerns are properly being met, Governments
of any persuasion will be faced with a difficult decision and will
probably be almost forced to shut it down." Bush Election Debate (Landline ABC 4 November 2007)
The response from the pastoralists in the West was predicably swift and sharp:
Pastoralists in Western Australia have reacted angrily to a
suggestion by the Federal Opposition that the live sheep and cattle
export industry be banned. Live export ban would devastate WA: PGA (ABC November 2007)
So what was the response from the local candidates for Kalgoorlie where
live cattle exports are a common feature of the ports? There was a
“me-too” reply from one of them but shock, horror it was Barry Haase,
sitting Liberal member. It might be a 6.3% margin but Barry doesn’t
normally express a lot of controversial opinions of his own. This time
he is reported as follows by ABC News:
"The Coalition would ban live exports if sufficient evidence suggested animals were being abused.
"If we are aware, as a Liberal Coalition Government, that exporters are
abusing stock or the end user is abusing that stock, we would shut it
down also," he said.
However, the ALP candidate, Sharon Thiel, took the pastoralist’s side:
"Like I said, I am very supportive of the live export industry and I
would certainly work ... within my power, well I would work
and stand by them," she said.
It may never come to the crunch but it is a strange issue for Barry
Haase on which to depart from his National Party Agriculture Minister,
Peter McGauran. He is not usually thought of as a friend of green or
animal welfare groups. Ask Malcolm Douglas about the Maret Islands
proposal for a natural gas plant.
In a apparent softening of his earlier remarks Senator O’Brien is
reported in Tuesday’s West Australian as saying that the ALP has no
plans to end live exports but may look at particular countries if
necessary.
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