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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-10-15 Daily Xml
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Sheep Electronic Identification Rollout

The Hon. J.S. LEE (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:58): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development about the sheep eID rollout.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Primary producers are currently suffering, with some parts of South Australia, including the South-East, facing the worst rainfall on record for this time of the year. Rural Business Support has reported a 40 per cent increase in clients from the South-East seeking financial counselling, with recent research showing nearly half of Australian farmers have experienced depression.

Animal welfare concerns are also being raised by the industry, with nearly 1,000 large bales of hay recently being donated to South-East producers. Coorong council mayor, Paul Simmons, has suggested publicly a range of options to assist primary producers, including to delay the rollout of eID for sheep and to offer concessional loans for primary producers in need. My question to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development is: will the minister listen to the concerns of industry and do what is in her power to assist them by delaying the sheep eID rollout?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for her question. I met with Mayor Paul Simmons a couple of weeks ago when I was in the Limestone Coast and we were able to go through quite a wideranging discussion in regard to the current draft conditions and the situation. In regard to eID, we did discuss, as I have on many different occasions, the fact that eID is about traceability.

If there is an outbreak of a serious animal disease—an exotic animal disease such as, for example, foot-and-mouth disease, which we fortunately do not have in Australia at this time—that would be absolutely devastating for all of our primary producers and livestock producers obviously in particular. So eID is about improving traceability so that we can protect that important industry.

My department, the Department of Primary Industries and Regions, has continued to engage with industry and there are many different stakeholders that are a part of the discussions around eID. We will continue those discussions but it is important to realise that this is an important protection for our primary industries.

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