THE focus of the State Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan was spelt out clearly at a closed-door meeting with sheep producers at Katanning last week.
The minister referred to herself as the “Minister for Animal Welfare” as she sought the backing of industry for a pause in the live sheep trade to the Middle East during the northern summer months, despite Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud saying that a temporary halt to the trade would not occur this year.
WA farmer organisations have asked the minister to “step aside” and let the changes recommended in the McCarthy Review, and implemented by the Federal government and the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council, occur before pursuing her agenda.
But Ms MacTiernan has continued to push ahead with her “animal welfare” focus to try and prevent sheep dying at sea from severe heat stress, and to find all the relevant information that she can use to prosecute Emanuel Exports for its handling of the Awassi Express incident in August last year, when 2400 sheep perished during a heat wave on the way to the Middle East.
It has also come to light that the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) investigators have had to apply under Freedom of Information laws to get documents from the Federal Department of Agriculture and Water Resources related to the incident, after the Federal government said it couldn’t hand over relevant documents.
Ms MacTiernan said that the documents they were seeking contained all the information the State government needed to establish whether or not there was a breach of WA animal welfare legislation.
Emanuel Exports was able to challenge the release of the information under this process.
The whistleblower footage aired on 60 Minutes is what reignited the debate on the live export trade.
Ms MacTiernan said she was concerned that one more incident like what happened last year could result in an all-out ban on the industry – due to the number of Federal MPs opposed to the trade.
One attendee at the Katanning meeting last week was WAFarmers senior vice president of the livestock council John Wallace, Esperance.
Mr Wallace said the live export issue had become a “political football” in order to score cheap points.
“It’s getting away from the principles, or what’s actually been going on in the export industry,” Mr Wallace said.
He completed the 1000 kilometre round trip to attend the meeting because of the importance of the issue to the WA sheep industry.
Mr Wallace said he had it on record that the minister referred to herself as “the Minister for Animal Welfare, rather than the Minister for Agriculture” – which revealed why producers were losing confidence in her ability to represent them.
“I think she has lost sight that if you suspend the trade for any length of time at all you will kill it,” Mr Wallace said.
“Consistency of supply is what it’s all about.”
Mr Wallace said he has been concerned with the minister’s response to all the negativity in the media about the live sheep trade.
“I would’ve thought that the Minister of Agriculture – with a trade that is so pivotal for WA producers – would be selling the good news stories about the industry,” he said, referring to the positive results from live sheep exports that have left Fremantle in recent weeks with mortality rates well below the new reportable threshold of one per cent.
“Without live export influence in the WA marketplace you will see prices fall.
“We will see a reduction in wether prices anywhere from $20-$50.
“We’ve already seen a reduction of upwards of $20.”
Mr Wallace said just because it had rained it didn’t mean that things would turn around for livestock producers who have been spending large amounts of money on stock feed.
“The whole State is on a knife edge,” he said.
“We are going to need more rain.
“I’ve been spending $3000 a week on feed and there’s still quite a bit of pressure on the market system.
“Dry ewes have got no grass and we want live exports to take the pressure off.
“When you have extreme market pressure from dry seasons, the processors won’t be able to handle the numbers – and this may become a bigger issue than live exports.”
Mr Wallace said producers had been let down by the regulators.
“The last time we had an issue, the producers were proactive in setting new guidelines and standards, and the politicians are ultimately responsible for overseeing and policing the regulations.”
Sheep Alliance of WA chairman Craig Heggaton also attended the meeting and said there was “unanimous support that we couldn’t afford to disrupt the trade because the consequences for WA would be devastating”.
“Producers were emphatic that changes needed to be made, with stricter self regulation within the industry,” Dr Heggaton said.
“If phased out over a period of time we could manage that, but if it was an outright ban it would be devastating to the industry.”
Dr Heggaton said the type of sheep that went to live export were different to those sought by the processors and if more sheep were to be processed locally there would be a need to “feed them to get to a slaughterable weight”.
He said any over supply of livestock, or “flood of sheep” into the processing sector would see prices reduce and be difficult for processors to handle, due to the increased load, labor requirements and market development for the extra product.
“Getting people to work in the processing industry is difficult,” he said.
Ms MacTiernan said there was a “mixed” reaction to considerations for the WA sheep industry at the meeting, which was attended by about 30 sheep producers from across the South West.
“There was a mixture of responses at the meeting from people who were fighting for live export to those who were concerned about the negative press,” Ms MacTiernan said.
“I think that it was the view of most in attendance that live export days were numbered.
“If it had any chance of surviving it really needed to get its house in order quickly.”
Ms MacTiernan believed that, despite the changes implemented, they didn’t go far enough and there remained a real risk of another incident occurring during July-September.
The minister supported the idea of a phase-out of the industry over a longer period of time than the five years proposed by Senator Sussan Ley’s Private Members’ Bill so that the WA flock had time to be “restructured”.
Mr Wallace said the minister left the meeting with no talk of a follow up.
