Fitzgibbon: clock was ticking on live exports

The ABC Four Corners program had launched unparalleled public pressure and outrage which hit the Gillard government harder than ever before, in demanding a trade ban to resolve animal welfare concerns.

“I have no doubt the ABC did its best to make the situation look as bad as it possibly can because that’s what brings ratings and that’s what delivers journalist’s awards,” he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon said he found the broadcast program and its gut wrenching animal cruelty images “confronting” like most Australians did.

“It was terrible and obviously not something we would continue to play a role in,” he said.

In his 20 years in parliament, the senior Labor MP has never experienced such a ferocious campaign response from the public, measured by the volume of emails that arrived afterward the ABC broadcast.

Mr Fitzgibbon said that intense pressure was experienced by all members of parliament including those in regional electorates, in that intense period.

He said those members with more densely populated city and suburban electorates were hit hardest - but their appreciation of the live export industry’s importance and the suspension’s potential impact, was less appreciated.

“I think overwhelmingly the emails I was receiving were from people living outside my electorate,” he said.

“Those living in capital cities were of course receiving emails from people in their electorates and of course members of parliament are a bit sensitive to thousands of emails coming from people in their electorate, on an issue like that.

“They were very demanding of all members of parliament insisting that government act quickly to ban the trade.

“Now of course the Gillard government didn’t ban the trade - it only paused the trade - in order to scramble for a solution.

“I’m very pleased that the suspension didn’t last for too long and that we were able to put a mechanism in place to ensure that if we ever saw footage like that again we had the tools to deal with it, rather than again to suspend the trade.

“That is the good thing that came out of the whole event.

“We were able to render the industry sustainable by proving to people we now have a system in place which in the first instance prevents these things from happening and in the second instance gives producers the right response, if things do go wrong.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said when the ban live exports campaign was in full swing, after the ABC broadcast, and Labor was considering its response, he looked “very, very hard for alternatives to the suspension”.

He said he urged his colleagues to find other ways of dealing with the pressure but sadly, in the end, came to realise the government only had two options, with one being do nothing and the other to suspend trade.

Mr Fitzgibbon was appointed to the Agricultural portfolio, leading into the 2013 election after Kevin Rudd became PM, and said he was very confident, if he was Minister when the suspension occurred, “a third option may have been possible”.

“I would have found other alternatives but to this day, I still wonder what those alternatives were,” he said.

“John Howard found no other alternatives when he suspended the trade and unfortunately Julia Gillard wasn’t able to find an alternative either.

“Sadly in my view the industry hadn’t, in the years after the two suspensions by the Howard government on the live trade, provided government with tools to respond in a third way.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said debate became “quite heated” in the ALP caucus on several occasions five years ago with those members who were being overwhelmed by complaints battling it out against those who were concerned for the impact on their electorates, of a suspension.

He said he and other ALP members like NT MP Warren Snowden, who represented constituents who would be impacted by a ban, kept calling upon the government of the day, to find a third way.

“It was clear the Australian community expected a response and it was also clear that a suspension would have a significant impact on the sector and the regional communities they surround,” he said.

“Most of us were struggling.

“You know if I had a third response I may have been able to convince (the government) to use it (but) to this day, I still find it difficult to find that third response.

“There was nothing between 2005 - the year of the last suspension - and 2011.

“The industry really hadn’t done anything to prepare itself for the next event.

“It happened in 2011 and it may have happened in 2012 or 2013, but it was coming - the clock was ticking.”

Labor MP Tony Burke was Agriculture Minister from 2007 to 2010 and was replaced by Queensland Senator Joe Ludwig who signed the control order, initially suspending trade for six months.

Mr Fitzgibbon said he believed the Indonesian cattle crisis had the capacity to bring the government down five years ago - not only in the immediate sense but certainly at the next election, in 2013.

“When you’ve got an issue big enough to bring a government down, ministers have less control, because obviously it becomes an issue that absolutely focusses the Prime Ministers’ mind,” he said.

“Every issue that caused any controversy at that time posed a threat to the government and on that basis, this one did too.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said by the time he became Agricultural Minister the controversy had died down with the suspension over and new regulation – the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System - in place.

He said while the situation was calm, it didn’t take him long to learn that there remained a lot of resentment in rural communities over the government’s actions.

“Everyone was courteous, but I just felt a lot of resentment towards the Labor party as a result of the suspension,” he said.

“I said on a number of occasions I would have liked to think I would have done some things differently as Minister, but to this day unfortunately I struggled to come to any conclusions as what other options might have been available to me.

“And I still question what a Coalition government would have done if it was in the same position.

“Howard suspended the trade twice and I suspect if (Tony) Abbott had of been in government that he would have suspended trade as well because I still struggle to find any third solution the government had before it, beyond suspending (the trade) or doing nothing.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said his job as minister was simply to acknowledge, whenever he met producers, that significant damage had been done, but the right mechanisms were now in place to protect the sector and the government, in the event any future supply chain breaches occurred.

“On that basis I was able to assure them and to continue to reassure them that there shouldn’t be any need or a reason to suspend the trade again,” he said.

“No one can predict the future but I can’t imagine a circumstance where we would ever have to suspend trade again, because we have worked hard to put the mechanisms in place to enable us to deal with any future events.

“It’s not just the tools that we provided with government, the Industry itself is far more alert now than it was prior to the suspension of the need to continually work on building and maintaining that social license.

“The sector has come such a long way since 2011and of course the export supply chain has come a long way.”

Late last year, Mr Fitzgibbon visited Indonesia with the Consolidated Pastoral Company to inspect supply chain facilities first hand, including one abattoir which featured extensively in the Four Corners broadcast.

He said the difference between what was shown in the ABC broadcast and what he witnessed with his own eyes was “chalk and cheese”.

“What we saw in the footage is something very different than what I saw when I visited that same abattoir,” he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon said he was critical of any organisation or person who had - as their key agenda or objective - the abolition of the live export trade.

“I find those who are of that view do not understand the Indonesian market - they just speak out of ignorance, in my perspective,” he said.