Fears major law change could 'cut the guts' out of entire rural industry: 'It can't be fixed'

Yahoo

13-05-2025

A classic Aussie trade could be gutted in one state if the Albanese Labor Government follows through on a controversial plan, according to industry insiders.
Shearers point to a unique set of circumstances that mean an upcoming ban of live sheep exports will have a ripple effect set to decimate the prized merino wool industry in Western Australia.
'The ban doesn't come into effect until May, 2028 but farmers are making decisions now on what they do,' WA Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer told Yahoo News. 'Right across our membership here, most contractors have got a lot less work,' he said.
Cramming live sheep into pens and shipping them 10,000km has long been controversial, and animal advocates are thankful for Labor's planned ban. Groups like Animals Australia and the RSPCA say the industry has a 'dark history' and raised concerns about welfare at sea and after disembarking in the Middle East where butchering traditions are different to our own.
'Live sheep export is fundamentally cruel and it cannot be fixed. Literally millions of sheep have died and all have suffered through this trade in live animals,' an Animals Australia spokesperson told Yahoo.
'Animals Australia has conducted dozens of investigations over two decades and always finds suffering, lodging 76 legal complaints showing exporters' unwillingness to follow even basic rules.'
While Animals Australia argues suffering associated with live export is ongoing, 'inherent and unfixable', peak body the Australian Livestock Exporters' Council has dismissed allegations about ongoing animal welfare problems.
Its CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton told Yahoo there's 'no doubt' there were issues prior to reforms in 2018, but exporters have significantly improved, with one just recording its best voyage ever — 22 mortalities out of a shipment of 50,000 animals.
'What it boils down to is this government has made a deal with activists and made this decision based on ideology rather than evidence,' he said.
Harvey-Sutton estimates Western Australia's flocks have already declined by 25 per cent in the last 12 months. The industry warns it's not just the farmers and the labourers they employ that will be impacted, but also shops and other businesses in rural communities they buy from. The wool industry alone isn't just shearers and farmers, there are also brokers, handlers, dumpers, testers and transporters.
'If you look at the precedent that this sets, this is the first time the government's actually shut down a rural industry. We anticipated what the impact would be, and so far we've been proven correct. But in terms of how bad the damage is, sadly, we'll just have to see over time,' he said.
Perth is widely considered the world's most isolated major city, and so it's unsurprising that Western Australia's sheep market runs separately from the rest of the country.
South Australia ceased live sheep export in 2018, but in the west, the industry continues to have a major influence on sheep prices. Although live export only makes up 1 per cent of Australia's sheep and wool exports, Harvey-Sutton says it plays an important role, creating pricing competition in Western Australia.
'[Now] exporters and processors have to compete with each other, so you get a higher price naturally,' he said.
'You take that away, they don't have to compete… prices drop, and then that's less income for the producer. Then the producer has to make a decision — am I earning enough income to continue producing sheep?'
There's a specific impact on the wool industry that the WA Shearing Industry Association has witnessed.
Cross-bred sheep put on weight so fast and are often slaughtered before they've sprouted a fleece worth shearing. Merino sheep are slower to mature and are reared because their fleece is of a superior quality. They'll normally be shorn multiple times before they're sent to slaughter, providing lots of work for shearers.
'Merino ewes are always sought after, you can always get rid of them for breeding. But it's the merino wethers [non-breeding males] that you can't get rid of,' Darren Spencer said.
After 12 months of age, these wethers are considered mutton and they sell for a lower amount than lamb. While finding an abattoir to slaughter them at a good price in Western Australia can be a problem, there's more interest overseas.
'Live export is so important to us, because it takes those slower maturing merinos out of the system and gives them a much better value than they have in the [local] abattoirs,' Spencer said.
When sheep lost value in the 1990s, farmers simply shot and buried them, and Spencer is fearful of history repeating. While the planned live export ban isn't the only issue sheep farmers face, he thinks the loss of live export will be an added blow that will 'cut the guts' out of the wool industry.
There are few abattoirs left in Western Australia that process sheep, and much of the state is in drought. Rearing animals in feedlots so they put on weight before they become mutton is expensive because the price of grain is high. So those wanting to raise merino sheep are looking to the greener pastures in the east of Australia.
Shearers who can process 150 sheep can make $600 to $750 in a day, but the work is increasingly inconsistent.
"That's the problem now, we will have banks to work for three to four months, and then there'll be time to sit down," Spencer said. "It's not really good having groups of shearers just sitting around."
Animals Australia argues the sheep export trade has been in 'terminal decline' for decades, with numbers falling from six million annually in the early 2000s to around 400,000 in 2024. It told Yahoo decreases in flock size have been triggered by farmers moving from livestock to cropping.
'The change is happening and whether the live sheep trade was to have continued or not, farmers and utility workers such as shearers would be adapting,' its spokesperson said.
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