The former staunch supporter of the industry now says it’s ‘built on the suffering of animals’

Sussan Ley can certainly see the irony. In the past, the member for Farrer has been a vocal supporter of the live sheep trade: “I was right on the front foot saying keep this trade going, and I ran all the arguments that are now coming back to me.”

She laughs lightly: “Every single one of them.”

But Ley, a Liberal representing a rural New South Wales constituency, has reached the point where she has lost all confidence in the regulatory regime and can no longer support an industry with “an operating model built on the suffering of animals”.

She says the rules don’t work, because if the rules were enforced the trade would not be economically viable. “I think this trade in sheep is a shame and a stain on our international reputation,” she tells Guardian Australia’s political podcast.

The parliamentarian who resigned her frontbench position as health minister over an expenses controversy in early 2017 has perhaps learned something about windows of opportunity in politics being finite. She is fixed on her current objective, and approaching the suasion effort with implacable determination.

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This week Ley brought forward a private member’s bill banning live sheep exports in the northern summer from next year. Under the proposal, supported by fellow Liberals Jason Wood and Sarah Henderson, the transport of sheep and lambs to the Middle East or to any routes through the Persian Gulf or Red Sea would be banned within five years.

As well as the animal welfare arguments, Ley is firmly of the view that the trade is harming the international reputation of the meat industry. She insists she is attempting to defend the long-term interests of Australian farmers, not shut down their livelihoods.

For her pains she was rebuked by Malcolm Turnbull in the Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday for failing to follow due process. The rebuke annoyed a number of Ley’s colleagues, some of whom bristle when the National party tail wags the Liberal party dog.

Several Liberal MPs spoke during the meeting in favour of transitioning out of the live sheep trade, and made the case that the public backlash, after a litany of animal welfare scandals, was coming from their own supporters not inner-city Greens. Even some supporters of the trade referenced a deluge of negative constituent correspondence.

Liberal MP to introduce bill to ban live exports as industry agrees to more oversight Read more

Ley counters her prime ministerial rebuke by pointing out that Turnbull and the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, left her no option other than taking her legislation to the floor.

She’s sanguine about the events of the week, albeit through slightly gritted teeth: “The prime minister and I have been friends for a long time, and while there may have been difficult parts to that friendship, I’m sure it will continue.”

She’s had constructive dialogue with Littleproud, she says, but the Nationals MP is intent on preserving the live trade over the northern summer, which she insists is unconscionable. Their positions are consequently irreconcilable. “When there were statements made by the leadership we were not going to look at a phase out, then my only course of action was to argue for the phase out,” she says.

Ley isn’t looking to cross the floor. She is looking to persuade enough Liberal colleagues to support the phase out as official policy.

But she’s also not ruling out breaking ranks if that’s what it takes. That is absolutely on the table. “I would never say I would never cross the floor,” she says.

“I have given a commitment at this point in time not to cross the floor and the reasons for that are very simple: I want this to be Liberal party policy. I don’t want to align my views with Labor and give Labor a win on this.

Liberal MPs defy Malcolm Turnbull over live export industry Read more

“There’s a lot of grandstanding in this building but the hard yards are what happens out of the public eye, so now it’s up to us, my colleagues and I who believe in this, to push for the next step, which is for the bill to be debated.

“It should be debated. It’s a really powerful topic for many people and it’s an important topic for Australia. I think it should be debated and everybody vote according to how they feel.

“I’m not calling it a conscience vote, but [at the point the debate comes on] I believe we will see the parliament at its best, as we have with the gay marriage debate and with other issues I’ve seen over the years.”

She says emotion is powerful, and sways people, but she believes the only way she will win on banning the live sheep trade is with facts and evidence: “One of the things I’ve been really interested in doing in my time in parliament is not just speaking off the cuff and trying to twist people to a viewpoint because of rhetoric and emotion, but saying these are the facts.”

So what are the facts? “It’s a trade in terminal decline,” she says. “In the last five years the numbers of sheep exported from Australia has actually dropped by two-thirds.”

Ley says the live sheep industry is already transitioning, anticipating the inevitable. Her bill would set an end date and give farmers and the industry clarity and certainty.

While she’s copping some flak at home, her constituents are also responding to the sincerity of her personal conviction. One sheep farmer told her recently she’d “almost” convinced him, and in any case, she needed to do what she thought was right.

“I have to keep going on the path that I’ve set,” she says. “One thing I’ve learned from being in parliament for 17 years is when you believe you need to do something, you must do it, and never take a backward step.”