‘Keep the Sheep’ campaign launches

Western Australian farmers are not taking the live sheep export phase out decision lying down, launching a grassroots campaign to overturn the controversial ban.

A new grassroots campaign will see Western Australian farmers targeting marginal seats across the state, in an effort to pressure the federal government to reverse its ban on live sheep exports.

The Keep the Sheep campaign, launched on Thursday, will raise funds and educate constituents on the impact the ban will have on not only regional communities, but the Australian economy as a whole.

“This is an industry that is important to Australia, because every time you play with supply of food, it pushes the cost of food up. We need to go into these electorates and do a public-relations campaign to educate them on what this government is doing to them that will ultimately push the cost of their food up,” WA Farmers president John Hassell said.

“(The industry) is worth over a billion dollars a year to the Australian economy, so we need to tell people that it’s a billion dollars not coming into the economy, and that affects your standard of living.

“It (the ban) will be absolutely devastating for regional communities, and there will be flow on effects because those incomes won’t be spent elsewhere.

“We need to be able to send a message to government that you can’t ban this industry. It’s a viable, legal, ethical and well-run industry that has done everything that’s been asked of it.”

Keep the Sheep has a list of 17 marginal electorates it will target, including those close to Perth city in Curtin, Swan, Tangney, Hasluck and Pearce.

Trucks will travel to Perth CBD on Friday as part of the Keep the Sheep campaign.

It comes after Labor introduced the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) in the House of Representatives this week.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said “of course there will be an inquiry” into the bill at Senate Estimates on Thursday morning.

“I would think it would be a good idea for there to be an inquiry, and for it to go to Western Australia,” he said.

Mr Watt said there was no need for sheep producers to leave the industry because of this decision.

“Our plan is to build and extend the processing industry in WA. Only 12-14% of (WA) sheep are being turned to live export. We want to build up the processing industry even further over the next four years so sheep farmers can remain profitable in WA, and all that would change is that their sheep would be processed onshore,” he said.

This follows the voting down of an urgent motion put forth by Nationals Leader David Littleproud in the House of Representatives earlier on Thursday to investigate the consequences of the decision through the Standing Committee on Agriculture.

“The legislation has been introduced, even though the industry embraced world leading animal welfare reforms in 2019, not only in transport but also the processing of sheep in the Middle East,” he said.

“Industry has never had the science explained to them why they are closing the industry.”

Around 1000 farm vehicles and tractors are expected to descend on metropolitan Perth in a peaceful protest on Friday as part of the launch.

Livestock & Rural Transport Association vice president Ben Sutherland from Ravensthorpe, who also owns livestock transportation service 5K Livestock, will be leading 300 farmers coming up from Great Southern WA at 8am on Friday.

“Stock crates, flat tops, cars, trailers, utes, there’s even tractors coming out of Fremantle,” he said.

“There’s literally hundreds of people behind us supporting us in this, (the decision) is really unfair and unjust … how would you feel if 40 per cent of your income was just snatched away from you in a blink of an eye.

“It affects my community and badly, through kids at sporting events, other sporting associations, affects what we spend in the local community … it affects everything.”

Elsewhere, football players from Quairading and Cunderdin in WA’s wheatbelt linked arms together before their match at the weekend in support of the campaign.

Current Cunderdin reserves coach, and sixth generation wheat and sheep farmer at Meckering, 130km east of Perth, Cam Snooke, said the decision is affecting individuals mentally already.

“You go into weekend sport where people want to let off some steam, and they’re worried about their workplace, their friends and families,” he said.

“We’re rival communities in terms of sport, but we’ve come together as friends off field mainly just to support each other.”