Live sheep ban not the will of the Australian people, cattle reps tell inquiry

Submissions and appearances at the snap parliamentary inquiry into the bill to end live sheep exports indicates there is enormous concern among those in the cattle business over what is unfolding for their sheep industry counterparts.

The submission from the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association makes a case that the government's continued insistence it has a mandate based on having taken the policy to two elections does not hold up.

Firstly, it lost the first election it went to with the policy.

But the NTCA also says it is a 'stretch to say with honesty' that it was a policy taken to two elections.

It was not formally endorsed through the ALP's National Platform in the lead-up to either election and it was only confirmed two weeks prior to the 2022 election, and even then in a confusing manner, according to the NTCA submission.

There was effectively a silence on the policy for most of 2019 and 2020. As late as April 2022, the month before the election, then opposition leader Julie Collins in a national press club appearance refused to confirm Labor's position regarding the trade, NTCA said.

Just after, Labor publicly committed to the ban if elected but that position appeared to cause havoc among the ranks with WA's premier reportedly not aware that was coming.

"On the face of it, it doesn't even appear to have been a policy many within the party even knew about," NTCA chief executive officer Will Evans wrote in the submission.

"For the government to continue to claim this is the will of the Australian people and this is a policy voted for by the Australian people at the last election is wrong and deliberately misleading."

In his appearance at the inquiry, Mr Evans called the plan to phase out the sheep trade a brutal attack on people who live in regional Australia and raise their families there.

"I reject that the suffering and hardship inflicted on families of WA is the will of the Australian people," he said.

"This is a policy that will walk into the kitchens and bedrooms of the people, into their classrooms, offices and the places they live.

"This will cause them harm - that's a heavy weight for a government to bear."

A submission from one of Australia's oldest agribusinesses, Consolidated Pastoral Company, said the live export industry had been the victim of false and misleading claims for decades.

Chief executive officer Troy Setter said the current debate around the government's proposed ban on sheep exports was no exception.

"The foundation of the government's policy to shut the live sheep trade is the claim that this industry has lost its social licence to operate," he said.

"However, this claim is not supported by data gathered by ABC Compass Vote in the lead-up to the last federal election in 2022, where animal welfare was not in the top 19 issues."

CPC, along with many others making submissions, quoted community sentiment research of more than 4000 diverse Australians by CSIRO company Voconiq, which showed support for live export. When asked directly, just 11 per cent of participants strongly agreed with the live export phase-out.

Mr Setter said all socially and commercially viable Australian agricultural industries were now concerned about their future.

"Australian agriculture will now find it harder to find debt and equity support as capital moves freely through the world where there is good risk rated returns. Australian agriculture's reputation as a good investment is being damaged," he said.

The House Standing Committee on Agriculture, which is conducting the inquiry, is due to produce its report by Friday.