VIDEO: Farmers are fighting back on the ban of live sheep exports

CASON HO, REPORTER:  This is one of the final frontiers for farmers trying to keep the live sheep export industry.

Late last week farmers lined about three kilometres of road here in Muresk, in regional Western Australia where a parliamentary inquiry was examining the Federal Government's decision to ban live sheep exports by sea by 2028. 

VOX POP: It’s important to make a stand today to represent our industry.

CASON HO: Organisers estimate up to 2,000 people travelled from across the state to voice their concerns. 

VOX POP 2: We are sick of being ignored. We do exist. Come and have a look at us, here we are. 

VOX POP 3: I am astounded that so many people came out. 

PHIL GARDINER, SHEEP FARMER:  I hope that communicates how concerned these people serious are about the loss of the live export sheep market. 

CASON HO: Phil Gardiner has farmed sheep for almost 40 years.

PHIL GARDINER:  We've got this wrong. These guys are doing the right thing now. How can we punish them with a ban. 

CASON HO: The confronting images about to be shown have been at the forefront of the debate about live animal exports.

In 2017 more than 2,000 sheep died mainly from heat stress on board a single ship – the Awassi Express – which was travelling from Australia to the Middle East. 

The industry says significant improvements have been made since including strict guidelines for managing heat, stress, lower stocking densities and humane slaughter standards in importing countries.

PHIL GARDINER:  We didn’t do it properly for many years, but now we are doing it properly. 

CASON HO: Live exports make up just 2 per cent of Australia’s total sheep meat export market, according to the federal government. 

But farmers argue a ban will leave the entire industry vulnerable saying they’re concerned Australian abattoirs won’t keep up with demand if more sheep flood the domestic market. 

STEVEN MCGUIRE, WA FARMERS:  If you can guarantee to me that the abattoirs are not going to close, not going to go broke, get enough labour. If you can guarantee to me that there’s not going to be a drought, sure we’ll be fine, but you can’t guarantee that. You can’t guarantee that. 

CASON HO: Agriculture Minister Murray Watt says the phase out includes a $107-million transition package to help the sheep industry.

MURRAY WATT, AGRICULTURE MINISTER:  The evidence from processors themselves is that we don’t require substantial government investments in new abattoirs in Western Australia or anywhere else.

CASON HO: But the inquiry has heard evidence indicating otherwise.

I-LYN LOO, WA MEAT INDUSTRY AUTHORITY:  These abattoirs identify that capital investments of more than $435 million is required for the expansion of processing capacity in Western Australia.

MURRAY WATT:  There is massive and growing demand in the Middle East and right around the world for Australian lamb and mutton products, and I want to see them being processed in Western Australia to create more jobs and more exports for Western Australia. 

CASON HO: A ban has been coming for a while. Labor went to the 2022 election promising to end live sheep exports.

But it was only last month, that it announced the date to phase out exports by sea - May 2028 - and this parliamentary inquiry was called just two weeks ago after the agriculture minister introduced legislation to parliament. 

MERYL SWANSON:  Look, uh, we are desperately running short on time...

CASON HO: The inquiry was only had a week to host two public hearings - one in Canberra and this one in WA - the only state where live sheep export ships still operate.

The committee has another week to produce an advisory report due this Friday. 

VOX POP 4: An insulting token effort. That’s all this is. 

VOX POP 5: This is our whole livelihood. And they are just treating us like we just don’t matter.

MURRAY WATT:  We need to get moving, we need to start providing the funding to farmers and the industry to begin that adjustment. I don’t want to pretend that this is about whether we should go ahead with this or not. 

It’s about the piece of legislation that will go to the parliament and whether any improvements can be made to that legislation.

CASON HO: The number of sheep dying on live export ships has fallen dramatically in recent years.

But Dr Lynn Simpson, a former live export vet, argues there’s no amount of regulation that can make the voyages safe and humane enough for sheep.

DR LYNN SIMPSON, FORMER LIVE EXPORT VETERINARIAN:  We don't measure death as an animal welfare indicator, because that animal’s dead now, it doesn't have a welfare problem, because it's not feeling pain and suffering.

So airlines, for example, an airline wouldn't advertise going, you know, fly with Qantas, less people die with us.

CASON HO: The federal government commissioned Dr Simpson to help improve Australia’s animal welfare standards on ships more than a decade ago but what she saw instead turned her off the trade for good.

LYNN SIMPSON:  We’ve got the best written legislation, but do we want to stand up and tell the world “We’ve got wonderful welfare because we’ve got the greatest legislation of a terrible cruel trade?”

MURRAY WATT:  There’s no doubt that farmers in Western Australia are doing it tough at the moment, but restructuring the industry and expanding onshore processing, we think that provides a very positive future for Western Australian farmers.

PHIL GARDINER:  Our younger son has taken it up with a relish ...

CASON HO: Phil Gardiner recently passed his farm on to his son, James. He says all the talk about the live export ban has already hurt the market.

JAMES GARDINER, SHEEP FARMER:  We were selling some of our wethers for about $125 to $150 per head through live export. But more recently that has dropped to closer to $50 and in some cases lower than that. 

Then, if we do want to sell sheep into the local market, we are talking $20, $25 at best. 

CASON HO: They say that, for them, if there’s no ships, it could mean no sheep at all.

JAMES GARDINER:  Mistakes were made in the live export industry. They were.

The welfare of the animals on live export boats now is very good and I’d like the Prime Minister, or whoever it might be, to go on one of these boats and have a look for themselves. 

LYNN SIMPSON:  These animals go from being healthy to being ill to being really ill to collapsing to dying. 

This is when it goes badly but every voyage has a risk of going badly.