Meat exports
Statement
Hon Darren West (Agricultural Region) (6:24 pm): Hon Shelley Payne has inspired me to continue the theme of Australian industry. One of our biggest and best Australian industries is of course the Australian red meat industry. This afternoon I read the latest export data about the record production by the Australian red meat industry, exported to countries right around the world. If the President would allow me to indulge slightly, I want to build this industry up because it is a very important industry for Australia. Is it one that may be affected by the tariffs in the USA. It has been affected by tariffs into China, but has better days ahead. I want to contrast that with a group of people who are running around the country trying to campaign against our meat processing sector in Australia, particularly here in Western Australia, by sending Australian jobs offshore in the meat processing sector by sending live sheep across to the Middle East and campaigning for that practice to continue.
Last year was the largest year for red meat exports in history, with records set for beef, lamb, mutton and goat meat according to Meat & Livestock Australia. In 2024, Australia exported 2.24 million tonnes of red meat to 104 countries, representing the largest volume of red meat ever exported. High volumes were exported across all red meat categories—beef is up to 1.34 million tonnes; lamb is up to 359,229 tonnes; mutton is up to 255,098 tonnes; and goat meat exports are up to 51,489 tonnes. There is some commentary around the global landscape, which I will not go into, but our largest market for beef, lamb and goat meat was the United States. China was the largest market for mutton in 2024. Beef was up 22% in 2024 from 2023 and 4% higher than the previous record set in 2014. The strongest growth was seen in the United States where exports lifted 60% to 394,000 tonnes and in South-East Asia where exports lifted 33% to 177,000 tonnes. Exports of Australian grain-fed beef also broke records with 375,195 tonnes of grain beef exported last year. Those were records in the beef sector and what a strong sector it is right across Australia, particularly for export and also for domestic consumption. We all love a good steak.
For lamb, Australian exports rose to 359,299 tonnes, 10% higher than the previous record. Our capacity to process sheep in this country has risen by 10% over the previous year. There are people outside this Parliament telling us that we cannot possibly process that last 1% of sheep that we send out of the country live, here in Australia. I say shame on them. Australian workers are able to process this meat and export it around the world, just like they do with the other 99%. The campaign embarrassingly paradoxically called “Keep the Sheep” has finally shown us its colours. The campaign has now changed its slogan to, “Put Labor last”. It is a ruse for the re-election of Peter Dutton. I am disappointed in our mainstream and rural media that this has not been pointed out. Many of the organisers of this campaign have now put their hands up for preselection. Some have been successful, some have not.
Let us see this campaign for what it is, because no data from Meat & Livestock Australia backs up anything that has been said. Somehow, these people are telling us that the livestock transport industry will be affected if we process the last 1% of Australian sheep here in Australia. That works on the presumption that the lambs will walk to abattoirs themselves. That is ridiculous. Of course they will need to be transported, whether it be to a feedlot for live export or to an abattoir. On top of that, there are also transport jobs in moving processed box meat from the abattoir to be distributed across the state or exported. It is a furphy that transport jobs will be lost. It is also a furphy that shearing jobs will be lost. I am not sure how anyone might make the connection that lambs that go to export will need to be shorn and lambs that go to slaughter will not. All sheep will need to be shorn. Of course, all sheep that are exported are shorn before export, but there are only 300,000 of them out of about 17 million sheep in Western Australia. I do not see how that is going to have a big impact.
For lamb, the largest market was the United States with 85,000 tonnes, followed by China with 53,000 tonnes and the United Arab Emirates with 27,268 tonnes. That lines up pretty well with about 15,000 to 18,000 tonnes that we export live. The United Arab Emirates buys more processed meat than it buys live meat from Australia.
The argument that they must be sent overseas live is also a furphy.
Mutton exports rose 255,000 tonnes, which is 22% higher than the previous record. China remains the largest market for Australian mutton, buying 95,000 tonnes; Malaysia, the second largest market, buying 27,000 tonnes; and the United States, the third largest market, buying 20,000 tonnes.
United States was the largest market for Australian goat meat, which is the meat most eaten in the world, followed by South Korea and China. Australian goat meat exports were 44% higher than in 2024.
As we get closer to the federal election, we see the increased rhetoric from the campaign suggesting that the sky will fall in if we send livestock offshore to be processed offshore, and we are not quite sure how they are processed offshore. We know that if they are processed here in Australia, they will be processed in accordance with the animal welfare standards expected by Australians.
Perhaps I am bucking our government's position a little on this issue but it is very much time that we started getting on with the transition to processing our own Australian-bred sheep, some of the best in the world, in Australian abattoirs, some of the best in the world, by Australian workers, some of the best in the world. If we send that processed sheep meat out of Australia in boxes rather than on ships, I think members will find there will be more jobs in regional Western Australia once we make that transition. While the fight continues and I hope it ends after the federal election because it is a political campaign, not a sheep campaign, we should get on with this transition and move these best practice-bred sheep to the best practice abattoirs processed by the best practice workers of Western Australia.
House adjourned at 06:31:28 pm
Questions on notice answered today are available on the Parliament of Western Australia's website
