Labor says bill could pass with support from opposition, crossbench and government MPs

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Liberal MP Sussan Ley’s private member’s bill to ban live sheep exports is gaining support. Labor is talking up the prospect it could pass with votes from the opposition, crossbench and government MPs.

Ley introduced the bill on Monday, with backing from Liberal colleagues Sarah Henderson and Jason Wood, but indicated the trio would not cross the floor to force a vote but rather use it to build support to change Coalition policy.

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Ley’s bill would ban live sheep exports in the northern summer from next year, and in five years totally ban the transport of sheep and lambs to the Middle East or to any routes through the Persian Gulf or Red Sea.

The Turnbull government has rejected a ban on live exports in favour of rules to increase space allocated to sheep on ships by 39%, improved ventilation and increased penalties for directors who flout the standards.

Ley told the lower house she had not allowed “emotions to overcome reason” but the case for live sheep exports “fails on both economic and animal welfare grounds”.

“If the rules were actually enforced — access to feed, water and rest and avoidance of high heat stress — no commercial operator would undertake the trade,” she said. “Exporters have explained to me that it would not be viable.

“Unfortunately, this is an industry with an operating model built on animal suffering.”

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Ley said that the industry had 33 years and “countless second chances” to improve conditions but exporters “do not comply with the rules” because “regulations written on paper in Australia cease to mean anything once the ship departs”.

On Monday Henderson told ABC News Breakfast it was “very disappointing” the review by livestock vet Michael McCarthy had not “come up with recommendations that follow the science” by recommending a ban as the Australian Veterinary Association has done.

“It doesn’t matter really whether the ships are destocked, whether they’re better ventilated,” she said. “It’s like putting a dog in a car on a hot summer’s day – that will lead inevitably to death.”

Labor’s agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon told ABC’s AM that he had “no doubt” that Ley’s bill reflected the view of the broader Labor party, and he was “very confident” his party would support the bill.

Fitzgibbon suggested that if Labor retained its seats in the upcoming byelections, the bill would need five more votes to pass, and three could come from the crossbench.

In addition to Ley and Henderson, he said “a number of the government’s own ranks have approached me expressing their support privately for this bill”.

However, with the government controlling the order of business in the lower house, Ley’s bill may be debated but never voted on.

Ley said the Liberal MPs would not cross the floor to force a vote.

Ley said the group was not “running around the corridors counting the numbers” but “a significant” number had approached her to discuss the bill.

“We are doing this the right way. We are doing this by building support within our party, something that I believe should be a change of policy.”

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Earlier, the Nationals MP and former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce rejected a live export ban. He warned it would make farmers poorer, especially those forced to compete with the sale of sheep and lambs no longer exported.

He told reporters in Canberra the backlash “will be vastly more politically potent than the first effect of the devastating conditions we saw on the boat”.

“People say [the industry] is not viable and fading out. If that is the case, let it happen.”

Joyce has come under fire for his failure to improve animal welfare conditions in the live export industry, including for the Abbott government’s decision to abolish the Australian Animals Welfare Advisory Committee.

Joyce defended his record, saying he “rang up all the exporters personally” to demand they lift their game and that incremental changes to regulations were preferable to a ban.

The latest controversy was sparked by whistleblower footage from the voyage of the live export ship Awassi Express on which 2,400 sheep died.