Exporters label live sheep trade ban “unwarranted”

The federal government has reconfirmed its promise to stop live sheep exports, while exporters say the phase-out ignores changes made to “an industry that has reformed”.

Live sheep exporters have claimed the government’s planned phasing out of the practice is “unwarranted” and “risked causing economic problems for Australia’s producers”.

Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton also said the government’s policy both failed to acknowledge measures the industry had taken to reform itself or its importance to the livestock supply chain.

“This policy is unnecessary, and we do not support it,” he said.

“This is an industry that has reformed and supports thousands of workers in rural Western Australia and this move would threaten 3000 jobs within the supply chain locally.

“Stating that an industry should be shut down due to past social licence challenges is an alarming precedent that should concern every agricultural industry in Australia.”

Mr Harvey-Sutton made the comments after federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt yesterday told a senate estimates hearing that the Australian live sheep trade was an industry in decline and had lost its social licence following “a range of incidents”.

“If you’re looking at things like mortality rates, I recognise that there have been some improvements on that,” Senator Watt said.

“(However), community opinion more broadly is that the industry should be phased out, it shouldn’t be done overnight.

“We’ve said that we’ll do it in consultation with industry, we’ll do it in an orderly way.”

Sheep being transported to the Al Kuwait in Fremantle Harbour on June 16, 2020. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously stated that the phase-out would not occur before 2025.

Senator Watt made the comments in response to Senator Slade Brockman from Western Australia suggesting that the government had ignored changes made by sheep exporters.

As previously reported by The Weekly Times, Australia’s live sheep exports have fallen to the lowest level in years.

By the end of November last year, just 427,591 sheep were consigned to live export destinations, dominated by the Middle East.

This was a massive 73 per cent decline from the same period five years ago, according to figures collated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia.

Exports were exclusively from West Australia, with five shipments totalling 69,000 sheep going to Israel for breeding purposes.

The remainder of the sheep went into the Middle East destined for slaughter.

In 2017, 14,094 sheep died during shipment or 0.8 per cent of total numbers, but this fell to 1381 or 0.2 per cent in 2021 in the most up-to-date figures available.

Meanwhile, agriculture department head Andrew Metcalfe told estimates that Kuwait’s largest importer of Australian sheep told him recently that they were already looking for alternate markets.

“The head of the company indicated to me that because they were committed to importing live sheep, that they were already looking for sheep from other places,” he said.