Senator AYRES (New South Wales—Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for a Future Made in Australia) (16:48): Rallies are good things. I know; I've organised a few of them in my time. They are good things. It's a good thing in our democracy to have people assemble. We have freedom of assembly in this country. On our side of the chamber, it's freedom of assembly for everyone. On that side of the chamber, it's freedom of assembly when it suits them. They don't like freedom of assembly if workers get together. They send them threatening letters. They are made angry by the idea of ordinary people getting together, but, in this case, they are for it. Maybe it'll be a learning experience for them. As I said, I've organised a few rallies in my time, and I do understand that there are sharp differences of views about the government's decision in relation to live sheep exports. I absolutely respect the right of Australians who are affected directly by this or have a view about this to put a view to government. That's why, indeed, the government has played its part here. There have been dozens of meetings with Western Australian farmers about these questions. There has been a compensation package that has been developed by the government. There is an ambition there to work with the agriculture sector in Western Australia to develop onshore processing options at scale. The truth is that nobody could do more damage to the live sheep export trade than was done by the previous coalition government. There were billions of dollars worth of lost trade as that industry fell off a cliff on their watch. Now they're there in the rally, but they did more damage to Western Australian agriculture than is contemplated in what is an orderly phase-out of this sector that has been brought to not one election but two elections. This is a government that does what it says it is going to do. What I do object to are the dishonest claims that are made by the coalition about agricultural policy. The first thing they should do in terms of agricultural policy is apologise for a decade of neglect. If they were fair dinkum about it, they would apologise for a decade of neglect. Their slogan, developed in their focus groups, is interesting. 'Keep the sheep' is the slogan. At no point does it say, 'Save the live export trade'; it says, 'Keep the sheep,' as if we're going to take them into people's backyards and pat them on their heads. It is the most dishonest campaign slogan. Senator O'Sullivan: It's their campaign. It's the farmers' campaign. Senator AYRES: It was developed by your team. That's what's going on. Senator O'Sullivan: Why don't you talk to them? They're up in the gallery— Senator AYRES: Now, let me come to these questions. Senator O'Sullivan is very upset about claims that are made about the size of the rally. There's nothing wrong with a rally of a few hundred people out the front of Parliament House. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the Liberal and National parties making inflated claims of thousands of people out the front, which is the immediate default. And I know—as I say, I've organised a few rallies in my time—you always make claims tripling the number of people who are there because it suits your purposes. But the problem is that it's not right, and those claims are being made by this crowd, even though they know they're not right. No wonder they've got such trouble in terms of fiscal policy; they can't count! It is a good thing that people flew or drove here from Western Australia. It is a long flight—5½ hours—which I do have to say is longer than Senator McKenzie's divestiture policy on the airline industry lasted. It lasted 5½ hours; that's the truth. This show is such a rabble. There are dishonest claims about agriculture. There are red-hot opinion pieces in the Australian Financial Review which last less time than a flight from Sydney to Perth. This is another rabble making dishonest claims, leading the farming community up a cul-de-sac with claims that can't be sustained.