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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 242 asked in the Legislative Council on 6 May 2005 by Hon Lynn Maclaren

Parliament: 37 Session: 1






LIVE SHEEP EXPORT TRADE, REGULATIONS

242. Hon LYNN MacLAREN to the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry:

I refer to the resumption of live sheep exports with Saudi Arabia.

(1) Is the minister aware that Saudi Arabia has now rejected at least 12 Australian shipments in the past 15 years?

(2) Is the minister satisfied that new regulations for live exports are sufficient to protect the animals to be exported from Western Australia to Saudi Arabia from unnecessary suffering?

(3) What will the government do if another incident occurs like the MV Cormo Express fiasco, in which thousands of sheep died during the voyage and were left at sea for weeks without being unloaded?

Hon KIM CHANCE replied:

I thank Hon Lynn MacLaren for her question.

(1) I cannot say that I am specifically aware that 12 shipments have been rejected from Saudi Arabia in the past 15 years. However, I am aware of two major incidents, which could have involved multiple vessels, that occurred in the port of Jeddah.

(2) I certainly believe that the new regulations are a step in the right direction. I had some significant input to the Keniry report recommendations, which ultimately led to, in substance, the commonwealth’s new regulations. There are provisions in the regulations that were not part of our requests and our evidence, and in some areas the commonwealth did not go quite as far as we would have preferred. However, generally we are happy with the regulations, as we were with the recommendations of the Keniry report. The test of time will show whether those regulations are sufficient, but I do not think we can allow this moment to pass without observing that, even before the Keniry recommendations take effect, there have been substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality rates of both cattle and sheep on both long and short-haul live export operations. Indeed, long-haul sheep mortality rates are now substantially below one per cent. Given that two per cent is the reporting trigger for mortalities on long-haul shipping operations, to get below one per cent is a good achievement. I think we can still do a lot better and I am hopeful that the new regulations will help to achieve that.

(3) Although I have had my differences with the commonwealth on the regulation of the live animal trade, I take my hat off to the commonwealth for the vigorous way it has pursued its policy of refusing to sign a memorandum of understanding as a precursor to a trade agreement with any of our importing countries without the establishment of a quarantine facility within those countries. The difference is that I would have been happy to have had one or two.

Hon Murray Criddle: That was the only issue with the MV Cormo Express.

Hon KIM CHANCE: Yes, that was the only issue.

Hon Murray Criddle: Absolutely.

Hon KIM CHANCE: As I said, I would have been happier with an agreement with the nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council for one or two regional quarantine yards in the GCC region, provided the GCC rule applied to the memorandum of understanding. The commonwealth went one stage further in its negotiations with Saudi Arabia, which I thought was quite dangerous, as it put our future trade with Saudi at some risk. However, the commonwealth has been more successful than I thought it would have been. The Saudis are now at the point that they are ready to sign the MOU and we will see the resumption of trade to Saudi. I can only support what Hon Murray Criddle said by interjection: the only reason we had a problem with the Cormo Express was the absence of a quarantine facility and the GCC rule, which would have allowed the animals to be delivered into that facility. The GCC rule itself was another part of the problem, but I am informed that rule had not been ratified by the GCC, although we all thought it had been. That is a complicated end to the question, but I hope my answer satisfies the member.