Farmer groups plea for reversal of live sheep export ban

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Nearly two dozen farmer and livestock groups have signed an open letter to the prime minister pleading for the government to reverse its decision to ban live sheep exports, warning it will cause “irreversible harm” to the struggling sheep industry and threaten Australia’s political ties and $1.1 billion trade partnerships with the Middle East.

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt set up an advisory panel in March to phase out the export trade, a commitment that Labor took to two federal elections after 2400 sheep died in extreme heat aboard a ship from Perth to Doha in August 2017.

The government has not outlined a timeline for when the ban on live sheep exports will be implemented.Credit: Ryan Stuart

But the National Farmers’ Federation, the Live Exporters’ Council, WA Farmers, Sheep Producers Australia, and 19 other state and federal agricultural associations have pushed for a reversal of the decision. The groups argue the industry has since improved its animal welfare standards, making the ban an “abject failure” that would mean Middle Eastern markets simply purchased sheep elsewhere.

“Banning sheep live exports from Australia will alter supply dynamics, however, it will not change global demand,” the open letter states.

“This policy will cause harm. It will hurt Australian families and damage Australia’s international standing as a reliable supplier of food and fibre and a trusted trading partner.

“We simply cannot support or reconcile logic without scientific basis of the phase out of a legitimate world-leading industry for purely domestic political purposes, and therefore cannot accept anything less than a policy reversal,” it continues.

“We are the voices of Australian agriculture. We need you and your government to listen to us.”

The federal government has not outlined a timeline for when the ban will be implemented, only that it will not happen during the current term. The advisory panel into the ban was due to issue a report on the phase-out by the end of September, but this has been extended to October 25.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “The Albanese government has been clear that we intend to implement the election commitment to phase out live sheep exports, but that it will be done in an orderly way, in consultation with industry and other stakeholders through the independent panel.”

“We will await the report from the independent panel before making any decisions about how best to deliver that transition, and will continue to work with industry to develop growth opportunities, including an expansion of onshore processing, which has seen sheep meat exports increase in real terms by around 200 per cent since 2003.”

Sheep farmers say they have suffered since the announcement of the Labor policy, which has created uncertainty about the $85 million industry’s future. Mutton prices, which were more than $100 in January, have dropped to as low as $1 per head in some instances amid a national oversupply of 640,000 sheep, which has led some farmers opting to shoot the animals.

The rock-bottom mutton prices have not been reflected at the supermarket checkout, where shoppers are paying $10 a kilogram for half a leg of lamb or $28 for lamb loin chops at Woolworths and Coles.

National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson said cutting off sheep exports to Middle Eastern trading partners would threaten food security in the region and result in Australia “sleepwalking into another diplomatic gaffe in the Middle East”.

“The message we’ve heard from these trading partners is that pulling the rug out from under their food supply will have broader impacts on our relationship,” she said.

National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“We need the prime minister to pull back and look at the bigger picture here before it’s too late.”

The open letter to Albanese follows another letter from Kuwait’s Commerce and Industry Minister, Mohammad Othman Al Aiban, earlier this month addressed to Watt. It urged the agriculture minister to reverse the ban as live sheep exports had “significant relevance to our religious, cultural and social stability”.

Agriculture exports to the Middle East have also been hindered by reduced air freight capacity. The National Farmers’ Federation, WA Farmers and Australian Meat Industry Council made submissions to the Senate inquiry into the decision to block Qatar’s application for additional flights, arguing that freight costs had increased and exports had fallen.

Sheep meat exports to the Middle East and North Africa have fallen from 160 tonnes per day to 66 tonnes, according to WA Farmers’ submission.

“It is crucial that government ensure that it is facilitating and encouraging access for additional airlines and flight capacity to our nation,” Australian Meat Industry Council chief Patrick Hutchinson said in his submission.

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