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One Nation slams live export opponents

A fact finding mission of Federal MPs has recently been to the Middle East to look into the issue of Australia’s Live Sheep Trade. Among them were Labor MPs Dr Ann Aly, Maria Vamvakinou and Chris Hayes, who all went to Kuwait to meet with the Kuwait Investment Authority and sheep importer KLTT. Currently the ALP has a policy that Australia’s Live Export industry should be phased out in favour of the transitioning to a chilled meat export industry.

For months One Nation has been saying that ending the live export trade in Australia will not end the practise, but will simply result in importers importing from other countries and Australian farmers losing out. This would have a major impact on the national and Western Australian economies, especially in regional WA.

For cultural and religious reasons, Kuwaitis and others Middle Eastern nations want to purchase livestock, not chilled or frozen meat. The delivery of livestock is essential to the contract Australia holds and if we as a nation are not willing to provide our buyers with the product they desire, importers like KLTT and others will simply go to a country that can provide them with their desired product. South Africa and Romania have already been mentioned as possible alternatives. Regardless of who, there will not be a shortage of nations bidding to fill the void in the market left by Australia’s cessation of live exports. As I mentioned, the Kuwaitis will not switch to chilled or frozen meat over live imports for cultural and religious reasons, and this will not change. It’s either live exports, or no exports. There is no middle ground.

Ironically, those in the ALP and Greens who have difficulty understanding this situation, are the very same people who consider themselves more tolerant and sensitive to the cultural differences of other nations.

So why are the ALP and Greens clinging to a policy that will knowingly not end live exports to the Middle East, but will only serve to undo a valuable and crucial trading partnership?

If this is truly about animal welfare, how do the ALP and Greens reconcile their policy with the fact that the countries which will inevitably pick up the live export contracts almost certainly do not have animal welfare laws and standards as strict as Australia’s?

Kuwait buys around 1 million sheep a year from Australia, about 70% of which come from WA and the impact of ending that industry will be catastrophic. If Australia stops exporting live sheep, our farmers lose out, small businesses in regional towns lose out, which in turn impacts the entire region. This impact will flow on to the state and national economies, which are already suffering in many areas.

The Kuwaitis’ lose an established export relationship which provides them with top quality Australian lamb, and are now forced to import from another country. The only winners are the farmers in the countries who will inevitably win the new contracts. Regardless, Kuwait will continue to import around 1 million sheep a year.

It is now beyond a doubt that stopping the export of live animals from Australia will not halt the importation of other animals from other origins. The question now becomes, do MPs from the Labor Party represent the interests of Australian farmers or those of other exporting nations?

 

Hon Colin Tincknell MLC

Member for the South West Region

PHON Party Leader WA

https://www.facebook.com/tincknellMLC/

Government Transparency and Accountability

TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILTYYesterday I had an opportunity to speak on the issue of Government transparency and accountability. Both sides of politics are guilty of hypocricy when it comes to these two areas in Government. For too long a culture of secrecy and avoidance has been allowed to become the norm of our Government. When in Opposition, each party wants to hold the other to account, but when they win Government, there integrity is nowhere to be found.#colintincknellmlc #onenation #peoplebeforepolitics #Transparency #Accountability #Labor #Liberal

Posted by Colin Tincknell MLC on Thursday, February 14, 2019

 

The post One Nation slams live export opponents appeared first on onenation.org.au.

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