Like other Australian urbanites who stomp around our capital cities in their RM Williams, my current knowledge of the bush is no doubt less than it should be.
It’s not that I can’t claim a certain farming pedigree. Patsy Durack, the pioneering pastoralist who famously drove an enormous herd of cattle across the continent to open the Kimberley, is a direct ancestor. And on the day the legendary Jackie Howe broke the daily shearing record my great uncles finished in not-too-distant 2nd and 3rd place behind him. Immediate family members remain on the land and have been wool growers for at least five generations. In recent times one of their properties in far Western Queensland even had a visit from one Scott Morrison, the first sitting Prime Minister to make the trip. I believe this event might even be commemorated by a plaque or something next to more important markers – like the current fastest cousin land speed motorcycle record.
I probably wouldn’t go too well trying to run a sheep station these days though. Or driving cattle overland. Old Jackie Howe can rest easy knowing that I’m not about to threaten his tally of fleeces any time soon. My road bike hooning times are surprisingly solid, but they still need serious work before I can hope to top the family leaderboard.
All that said, I’m still 100 per cent confident I would make better decisions about the sheep and livestock industry than the current Federal Agricultural Minister, Murray Watt and our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.
The federal government’s recent announcement that it will proceed to ban the live export of sheep by sea from Australia May 1, 2028, is a disastrous one and simply makes no sense. It threatens sheep farming communities in Western Australia most directly, but also casts a pall over agricultural producers across the country.
The decision has been driven by emotion not hard analysis. Certain matters desperately need to be made clear.
First, the undeniable reality is that there is a significant global demand for live sheep coming primarily from the Middle East. This is not going away any time soon. Yes, people in these markets also consume chilled processed meat, but for religious and cultural reasons they will always want live animals too. Don’t like that? Fine, take it up with Mohammad and Abraham and others in the region who have been slaughtering livestock for hundreds and thousands of years. Let me know how you get on.
Second, the supply of these live sheep will either come from Australia or from other parts of the world which take the ethical treatment of animals far less seriously than we do. Places like Somalia, Lebanon, and Romania. Shutting down our export industry will thus only accomplish two things (1) cause the destruction of livelihoods and livestock here and (2) reduce whatever ability we might have to ensure that high animal welfare standards are met elsewhere.
Third, no reasonable scientific justification has been provided by the Minister for the proposed ban. The terms of reference for the independent panel set up by the Government meant they were not even asked to consider this, just focus on how the phase-out should occur.
There is a wealth of information in the submissions made to the government from the full spectrum of farming and related organisations on this issue. But one key piece of data I think deserves greater publicity: the daily voyage mortality rate for sheep exported from Australia is currently only 0.0062 per cent. This is based on department of primary industry figures and has not been seriously contested by the government or any animal activist groups. Notably, this rate is lower than sheep being transported by truck in Australia, which no one is proposing to outlaw. It is also likely lower than the mortality rates for sheep on the land in Australia. In other words, contrary to public perception, one of the safest places for a sheep is on an Australian-regulated live export vessel.
The decision also misunderstands how integral and interconnected the live sheep trade is to other agricultural industries and regional communities. The government has sought to downplay its value and importance both for the purpose of calculating compensation and to argue it won’t be missed much. This is the public policy equivalent of a doctor wanting to cut out someone’s heart and saying that because it is a relatively small pound of flesh it should not have a big impact on the body as a whole. As the submissions make clear, if this ban goes ahead the sheep industry will be significantly smaller and the effect on regional communities will be huge. The proposed assistance package will be of little benefit. The operation will no doubt be declared a success by Drs Watt and Albanese, but the patient will die.
What about the argument that moving away from live export and focusing on processing meat is the future? Isn’t that type of thing you NatCon types want to encourage? This is simplistic in the extreme. Such facilities already exist, and current primary producers already make use of them. Implement government policies to expand and improve value-added industries, by all means, but there is no need to shut down and an existing export industry to do so. No one is suggesting, for example, we need to shut down Australia’s mining exports entirely in order to produce more processed minerals here.
Perhaps even more important than their economic consequences, decisions like this have capacity to damage the national character. They tear at the traditional bond between the city and the bush. The idea that we are all in this together. I accept some metro Australians could not care less, but it shouldn’t be underestimated that there are still plenty of us far distant city folk who do take an interest and don’t want to see regional communities needless harmed. The industry of Waltzing Matilda and Clancy of the Overflow may be overly romanticised, but it still means something to us. We don’t want to see it needlessly destroyed. Certainly not by these wild erratic policy fancies currently coming out of dingy little offices in Canberra.
Dan Ryan is the Executive Director of The National Conservative Institute of Australia. For those interested in supporting the campaign to prevent the shutdown of the live export industry please sign up here: https://www.keepthesheep.com.au
First published in The Spectator as “Banning Live Exports Threatend Disaster for Western Australia” on 30th May 2024. © Dan Ryan 2024. All Rights Reserved.
