This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Western Australian government has defended a decision to search the Perth headquarters of Australia’s largest live sheep exporter amid claims it could have jeopardised a federal investigation.

On Tuesday officers from WA’s agriculture department executed a search warrant on the offices of Emanuel Exports as part of an investigation into the conditions on a deadly voyage of Emanuel Exports-operated Awassi Express in August last year.

That voyage was the trigger for the McCarthy review which prompted a range of animal welfare reforms, although a recommendation that would have led to an effective ban of live sheep exports to the Middle East during the northern hemisphere summer was not accepted.

While the Emanuel offices were being raided, Ahmed Gosheh, the chief executive of Australia’s second biggest live exporter, Livestock Shipping Services, announced that it would not carry sheep from Australia to the Middle East during the height of summer this year because the 30% decrease in stocking density ordered after the McCarthy review made the trade uneconomic.

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Gosheh told the West Australian that the new restrictions increased costs by $35 a sheep.

WA’s agriculture minister, Alannah MacTiernan, told Guardian Australia that Livestock Shipping Service’s announcement was unsurprising and she doubted it would resume the high-summer trade in subsequent years.

“I think it’s pretty clear that if and when the McCarthy heat-stress model is put in place, then the summer trade won’t be viable,” she said.

MacTiernan said it was possible other exporters would follow suit, and abattoirs in WA could “absolutely manage” the 150,000-plus sheep left in surplus.

She defended the decision to raid Emanuel Exports, saying WA authorities had tried to work with the federal agriculture department to obtain certain documents – including export licence conditions and the terms of Emanuel’s exporter supply chain assurance system provisions – without success.

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The federal department did provide WA authorities with every document relating to Emanuel that it had previously released under freedom of information laws, but said the release of any further documents could potentially jeopardise a federal investigation into welfare concerns around the August 2017 Awassi Express voyage.

MacTiernan said WA authorities were initially told the documents could not be released because they were commercial in confidence and that both state and federal investigations should be able to be conducted simultaneously.

“At the end of the day what we are concerned about is the preparedness of the commonwealth to really take action,” MacTiernan said.

WA’s authority to investigate the exporter, which is operating under federal law, rests in a provision of the state’s Animal Welfare Act around conditions of transport.

If the export licence issued by the federal department expressly allowed the acts which WA authorities deemed to be cruel, WA has no constitutional basis to prosecute.

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Emanuel Exports’ director, Nicholas Daws, said the company would cooperate with “any validly issued warrant” but that it “does not believe the state government has a legal basis to investigate or intervene in matters relating to live export, given the scope of federal laws regulating live export”.

That view was seconded by the WA Farmers Federation and the Australian Live Export Council, both of which criticised the WA government for conducting the search and accused MacTiernan of pursuing a private agenda to end the trade.

The export council’s chief executive, Simon Westaway, said Livestock Shipping Service’s decision to suspend its high-summer trade this year did not mean that exporters would begin to permanently pull out of the trade, or that the trade was no longer commercially viable.

However, Animals Australia’s president, Lyn White, said the decision showed that the business model of live exporters was “suffering” under “minimal” animal welfare improvements.

Animals Australia will challenge the decision to grant Emanuel an export permit for June this year in the federal court next month.