Reports show the economic importance of the industry is shrinking for everyone but the exporters themselves

The first parliamentary report decrying the cruelty of the Australian live export trade was delivered in 1985.

Live sheep export, the senate report found, was not compatible with good animal welfare. But it was also profitable and deemed necessary for the livelihoods of Australian farmers.

The first statement remains true. The second is less clear.

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“The committee,” said the 1985 report, “came to the conclusion that, if a decision were to be made on the future of the trade purely on animal welfare grounds, there is enough evidence to stop the trade. The trade is, in many respects, inimical to good animal welfare, and it is not in the interests of the animal to be transported to the Middle East for slaughter.”

It went on to say that an immediate halt to the trade would be too “disruptive,” but said a long-term solution of phasing out live sheep exports in favour of exporting chilled or “boxed” meat must be pursued.

It has been 33 years. That long-term solution has been repeatedly delayed.

Live exports: mass animal deaths going unpunished as holes in system revealed Read more

Despite the outrage and disgust that followed the release of footage showing conditions on Australian sheep ships headed to the Middle East, and the resulting ministerial reviews and promises for change by the industry, it is likely to be delayed again.

On Friday the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, told ABC AM host Sabra Lane that Australian farmers needed the live export trade.

He said it was “naive” to assume the growth of the middle class in Australia’s key live sheep import countries of Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman meant the chilled meat trade could replace live export.

“The reality is there is going to be a demand for live trade for some time and if it’s not our cattle, it’s not our sheep, it’s going to be someone else’s,” Littleproud said.

Labor’s agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon suggested Australia might one day pull out of the trade, but said it should be an “orderly transition”. His Western Australian counterpart, Alannah MacTiernan, has suggested the same thing, citing the growth of the chilled or boxed meat trade to key live export markets.

Live exports could be dramatically reduced if animal cruelty case succeeds Read more

According to a report by Pegasus Economics, commissioned by non-government organisation Animals Australia, the chilled meat trade to the Middle East is now 2.5 times bigger by volume than the live export trade.

It said the economic impact to WA farmers of ceasing the trade would be $9m, or about $2,000 per farmer, based on an assumption that farmers get an $8 premium per head for selling to live exporters.

“There is no support for the contention that the live sheep export trade somehow underwrites the domestic sheep prices,” the report said.

That was disputed by the WA Farmers Federation, which released a report on Friday by market analysts Mercardo that said there was a price interdependence and that cutting the trade and selling an extra 1.6m sheep a year on the domestic market would drive down prices by between 18 and 35%.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A distressed sheep onboard livestock carrier Awassi Express. Photograph: Animals Australia/AFP/Getty Images

It predicted a revenue loss to WA producers of between $80m and $150m per year, saying that could be up to $100,000 per farmer for core sheep producers.

Both reports show the economic importance of the live export industry is shrinking for everyone but the exporters themselves.

New Zealand pulled out of the live sheep trade in 2003, saying the “reputational risk” to its farmers was too great.

In Australia, the voices of the export lobby are louder than those of animal welfare experts.



The federal agriculture minister, David Littleproud, said he was waiting on scientific evidence to determine if and under what conditions live sheep exports to the Middle East in the high-risk summer months might be able to continue.

Live exports: mass animal deaths going unpunished as holes in system revealed Read more

There has been considerable evidence produced in the past 20 years on the risk of heat stress, the conditions under which heat stress occurs, and the strong correlation between heat stress deaths and shipments bound for the Middle East between June and September.

Some of it has been produced by the federal Department of Agriculture, industry bodies such as Meat and Livestock Australia, and Murdoch University.

The Murdoch study found sheep began to show signs of heat stress at wet bulb temperatures of 26C, about 4.5C below the high risk threshold set in the Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock (ASEL).

Wet bulb temperatures of up to 38C have been recorded on live export ships. At those temperatures, says former shipboard veterinarian Lynn Simpson, sheep are being cooked alive.

It’s a business model that can’t make money if animals don’t suffer. RSPCA chief scientist Dr Bidda Jones

But Littleproud is waiting for evidence contained in the outcome of a review he commissioned from vet Michael McCarthy in response to whistleblower footage of voyages to the Middle East in 2017, including footage from the August Awassi Express voyage on which 2,400 sheep died of heat stress. It is due on 1 May.

If McCarthy concluded that the only option was to halt the summer trade, Littleproud said he would “definitely” do it.

“If I am looking at evidence that Dr McCarthy comes back with that says there is no way in any sense that this could be undertaken then we have to listen to that,” he said. “We have to listen to the scientific evidence.”

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has called for an immediate suspension of shipments and a three-month ban over the Middle Eastern summer, saying anyone who allowed it to continue after seeing the Awassi footage was a monster.

Bill Shorten calls for suspension of live sheep exports Read more

But Shorten is not backing a private member’s bill by government MP and former sheep farmer Sussan Ley to end the trade for good.

At the very least, the McCarthy review is likely to recommend a reduction in stocking densities, an improvement in shipboard ventilation, and possibly the installation of air conditioners, all of which subtract from the bottom line.

Littleproud has described mass mortality events such as that on the Awassi as the actions of a few rogue exporters who can be cut like a “cancer” out of the industry, but one of the biggest contributions to that cruelty – the cramped conditions – is built into the government regulations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Heat stressed sheep filmed on the Australian live export ship Awassi Express by a whistleblower on a voyage from Fremantle to the Middle East in August 2017. Photograph: Supplied by 60 Minutes/Channel Nine.

Current stocking densities allocate 0.38m2 per sheep, meaning they cannot lay down or easily access food and water.

Attempts to change it have ended up in court, as with the 2008 directive to cut stocking densities by 10 to 15% that exporters said would cut profits by 35 to 100%, or quietly shelved, as with the 2012 ASEL review.

The RSPCA says a minimum 50% reduction in stocking densities would be required. By their own reckoning, exporters cannot afford more than a token reduction.

“It’s a business model that can’t make money if animals don’t suffer,” RSPCA chief scientist Dr Bidda Jones said.