The live export ban for the Australian sheep industry was a topic at the tip of many tongues at LambEx in Adelaide last week.
It was discussed during a number of APlus News’ on-camera interviews, including with Australian accredited onboard stockperson Mandy Matthews.
“We have world leading animal welfare, and it is highly regulated live export now, and it is an industry that we can be incredibly proud of,” Ms Matthews said.
She encouraged people to share their real life experience online like she does via @rattle_yadags.
“We’ve all got a story to tell,” she said.
It was also a way people could do something positive, when it felt like no one was listening to community concerns “especially the government”, she said.
Just hours after that interview, newly minted Minister for Agriculture Julie Collins made a surprise appearance at LambEx, but apart from some carefully prepared words in a speech, she was not willing to engage with farmers and industry representatives on the issue.
Minister Collins’ team repeatedly refused media interviews from a number of major ag media outlets, citing lack of time.
She was briefly escorted around the conference’s trade hall before waiting for her allocated speech time behind closed doors for more than 45 minutes.
Keep The Sheep and other industry groups confirmed they were not invited to speak with Minister Collins during this time, although it is understood she spent some time with SA Minister for Primary Industries Clare Scriven.
Minister Collins also raised some eyebrows during her speech when she said “live ex” instead of “lamb ex”, so the issue was clearly at the front of her mind too.
Before Minister Collins’ visit to the event, Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council Chief Executive Officer Mark Harvey-Sutton told APlus News he had many things to say to her if she turned up.
“What I'd look to say is ‘Minister do you actually understand what your government has done here? There are communities, there are farmers, there are whole supply chains in Western Australia that are being devastated by this. Your government seems to be willfully ignorant of this fact. Why is it that you are more concerned about your political future than the futures of our farming families in Western Australia?'’”
He said it was “contemptuous” for any government to make decisions based on misrepresentations and mistruths.
“The sad thing is this is all politics, this is about activism actually starting to have a say on agriculture," Mr Harvey-Sutton said.
“If we allow this to happen we're opening the door, there's a precedent set, and what's next? Is it live cattle, is it mulesing, is it chemical use? This is a thin edge of the wedge and when a government's taking their talking points from activist groups rather than farmers we're in a bit of a spot of bother.”
He reiterated his organisation was not giving up and that the policy had to change.
“If the government actually cared or understood the situation they would not have put up a package of $107 million to transition," he said.
"The facts of the matter are only 60 million of that is earmarked for actually transitioning farmers out of their businesses, that's $60 million over four years, it's $15 million a year, so it’s nothing.”
Sheep Producers Australia Chief Executive Officer Bonnie Skinner spoke with APlus News at the conclusion of the three-day conference.
Ms Skinner graciously gave the minister’s inability to communicate with media or producers at the event some leeway, as she was just 10 days into the new role – but confirmed that there was much to urgently discuss with the government.
“Since we've had the legislation passed through there really hasn’t been a lot of clear communication from government on what the next steps are and we have people out there on the ground now who are wondering what to do next,” she said.
“We're yet to see any information about what this transition is realistically going to look like or any funding details around the overall package, so there’s lots of discussions yet to be had.”
Ms Skinner said the package should be looking more like $400m and above and that additional funding was needed to due the short time period for the phase out.
“Yes, it's tough right now but we need to keep looking towards the future and that's exactly what a lot of the discussions here this week have been about.”
