By killing our livestock export industries, the federal government is denying regional businesses and communities a livelihood while doing nothing to promote animal welfare, writes accountant Marion Murphy.
The shearers who founded the Australian Labor Party in 1901 must be turning in their graves. In 2024, in its quest for inner city votes, the ALP federal government turned its back on the bush when animal activists persuaded it to ban the export of live sheep from 2028. This threatens the viability of the $1.5 billion sheep and wool industry in Western Australia. Don’t let these activists pull the wool over your eyes: livestock exports from Australia have among the highest welfare standards in the world. Decades of investment in biosecurity, genetics, and animal husbandry has earned our favoured status for safety, consistency, and value.
OUR CUSTOMERS
Let’s look at live export through the lens of our two largest markets: sheep exported from Fremantle, Western Australia, to the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA), and cattle from Darwin and Townsville to Indonesia. Australian sheep are popular in the MENA wet markets. Guest workers from Africa and Asia are the main customers for fresh sheep meat, these consumers making up two thirds of the population of Kuwait and significant segments in other MENA countries. They want freshly killed meat: significantly, when Australian sheep are unavailable, they seek livestock from other countries.
Kuwait’s Livestock Transport and Trading Company (KLTC) supplies 50 per cent of fresh sheep meat consumed in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The KLTC is seriously committed to importing Aussie sheep, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to meet Australian animal welfare standards and building the largest shaded feedlot in the world.
Live sheep exports have declined from a peak of 7 million head per annum in the late 1980s to less than a million head per annum over the past five years. This is due partly to ever increasing, expensive, and intrusive Australian regulations. But decades on, and hundreds of millions of dollars later, MENA is compliant with Australian regulations, and demand is growing for Australian sheep. Saudi Arabia is ready to import up to 1 million sheep per annum. Morocco is hoping to import 100,000 sheep per annum but is frustrated by months of delays by the Australian Government. Despite the regulatory obstacles, sheep exports earned Australia between $277 million and $500 million per annum over the twelve years to 2022. If government would take its foot off the neck of this industry, revenue could return to or exceed the levels of the last century.
Only Australia regulates animal welfare through to the point of slaughter in foreign countries.
Cattle exports earn more than $1.4 billion per annum, with Indonesia the mainstay of this industry. Annual per capita income in Indonesia is approximately $US5,000, malnutrition is widespread, and supply of affordable protein is a government priority. Boxed beef is not widely available across the archipelago of 17,000 islands due to limited refrigerated transport. So villagers need livestock for fresh meat. Small meatworks operate in villages overnight, processing two or three head to provide fresh meat for their local wet market. If the Australian Government banned cattle exports, India and Brazil would gladly jump in, without our strict animal welfare requirements.
Indonesian supermarkets do not just advertise meat, they emphasise the Australian brand. Unlike Australian consumers, Indonesians prefer the lean beef of our exotic brahmans (bos indicus) to our southern bos taurus (for example, Angus) beasts. The Indonesians finish (fatten) the cattle to their taste in local feedlots. Brahmans are well suited to the torrid climate of both northern Australia and Indonesia.
Northern Australia has the landmass and economies of scale to breed cattle. Unlike northern Australia, Indonesia has the lush and fertile soils which provide silage and crop by-products for finishing cattle. Also, in contrast to northern Australia, Indonesia has plentiful, cheap labour to operate feedlots and meatworks.
A profitable live export supply chain also provides a market for feral goats and camels that need to be culled from our rangelands.
ANIMAL WELFARE
Australia exports not just livestock but also world leading animal welfare practices. The sad irony of the sheep export ban is that our customers will now be forced to buy sheep without the animal welfare requirements enforced by Australia. Only Australia regulates animal welfare through to the point of slaughter in foreign countries.
Source: ESCAS and ASEL – Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council (ALEC)The Australian industry has invested in purpose-built boats compliant with our animal welfare legislation and community expectations. Veterinarians and stockmen travel with the sheep and are proud of the care they take of their charges. Deckhands are paid a bonus if the mortality rates of stock are low.
These measures have been effective in driving down mortality at sea (Figure 1). Not only do more than 99.85 per cent of sheep survive but many thrive, as indicated by weight gain on longer journeys —as is to be expected on what is, in essence, a floating feedlot. Graziers argue that more stock die in the paddock, exposed to predators, disease and hazards, than on a boat. The industry elected to close the export of sheep over the heat of the MENA summer, and this is now embedded in legislation. The Australian sheep export industry has not just complied with regulatory limits on mortality; it has created a new paradigm in high standards of animal welfare.
Beef Rendang, an Indonesian delicacy.Photo: Premshree Pillai/Flickr
Market opportunities are ours for the taking.
Ships do not depart Australian ports unless seaworthy. Not all export nations are as vigilant. The Gulf Livestock departed New Zealand in 2020 bearing cattle for China. It struck a typhoon and sunk. The ship had repeated safety concerns flagged by maritime authorities and may have been operating while insolvent, according to auditors. The NZ Government banned further exports until improved welfare standards were enacted, possibly in 2025. China is angry, and vows this will affect the relationship.
Cattle fare even better than sheep due to their nature and the shorter journey, with less than one death per thousand head. The cattle industry and Australian Government have worked closely with the Indonesians to develop their animal husbandry skills, and supporting infrastructure to improve animal welfare. Indonesians have owned and worked on Australian cattle stations and studied animal health. Australian companies have invested in feedlots and abattoirs in Indonesia. Humane kill boxes are now used for 95 per cent of Australian cattle killed in Indonesia. This benefits all other cattle put through these facilities. This is an achievement, especially in remote, impoverished villages. The Indonesian side of the supply chain takes great pride in the animal welfare improvements they have achieved. Australia exports not just cattle to Indonesia, but also animal welfare practices.
But Australian animal welfare regulations have come at a cost, especially in the sheep industry. Morocco has been waiting a year for a response from the Australian Government regulators which might allow them to buy Australian sheep. Tony Seabrook, Chairman of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association argues many of the regulations are ham-fisted and add to the regulatory cost burden, with no evidence of animal welfare benefits. For example, banning exports of sheep to MENA countries over the summer is not justified in all ports. Halving the number of decks of sheep on a ship increases the freight cost, but there is no evidence of a welfare benefit.
Our sheep industry has been ground down by activists, and ill-informed bureaucrats in Canberra. Who holds the bureaucracy accountable for the loss of efficiency in its regulatory role? Politicians need to claw back the regulatory power that has been delegated to bureaucrats. It’s time that the voters of Australia demand productivity enhancing reforms from our governments.
IMPACT OF THE BAN ON LIVE SHEEP EXPORTS
The live export ban, legislated in 2024, has killed confidence in the WA sheep industry. Fifty-eight per cent of sheep producers plan to reduce their flocks. In the face of abundant export opportunities, the federal ban is already constraining supply.
An Indonesian worker monitoring Australian sheep aboard a livestock carrier.Photo: Photo by Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council on Flickr.
Prime Minister Albanese’s assurance that our customers will switch from sheep to boxed meat reveals a frankly shocking ignorance of MENA markets and domestic constraints. Air freight from Perth is prohibitively expensive compared to the eastern seaboard due to air freight constraints inherent in a small, remote port. Abandoned meatworks can be found right across our northern savannah: a testimony to the lack of viability in remote areas. Plants need to be close to grain (feed) production, export outlets, domestic markets and labour supply. When the ban on the export of sheep was legislated in 2024, two meatworks in Western Australia shut down in anticipation of a drop in sheep numbers. Meanwhile, MENA customers are in a state of disbelief and anger, having invested hundreds of millions of dollars to access Australian sheep.
Sheep, cattle and other live animal export industries share the same supply chain of agents, exporters, shippers, and offshore abattoirs. The closure of live sheep exports threatens the viability of the entire live export supply chain. Shippers will not have the confidence to invest in and visit Australian ports.
The federal government has budgeted $139 million to support the sheep industry to transition to meat exporting. This will not go far in establishing domestic feedlots and abattoirs. At the time of writing, funding has yet to reach rural communities. Even those in the cities will be affected; you can’t have a wool industry, and the fashionable pullovers it produces, without sheep, and that is an industry worth $3.5 billion per annum. Nor do you get lamb, so there go the midloin chops. That will result in higher domestic prices.
Treasurer Chalmers has conceded that the private sector matters and needs diversity. If this is the case, why is the government closing an industry that is over a century old and should continue for centuries more?
The live sheep ban has sent shockwaves through the northern cattle industry. More than half the cattle from the Northern Territory go to the live export market, earning more than $1.4 billion a year. The nefarious activists, buoyed by a victory over the live sheep export industry have no doubt got cattle export in their sights.
Northern Australia remains a frontier, much of it harsh and undeveloped, but rich in resources. It is therefore highly vulnerable until developed and populated. Growth in live exports is called for, in the interests of the region and the nation. Market opportunities are ours for the taking.
How did we go from a pioneering, nation-building culture to one that rewards politicians with landslide electoral victories for shutting down an export industry? Australia is an urban-centric society, disconnected from the rural industries and communities that provide our food and the exports that sustain our lifestyle. The voices of farmers are drowned out by well-resourced activists and hostile media. Social media is ripe for manipulation by those intent on harming this country.
Industries, businesses and regional communities are being shut down on the most dubious of grounds, with little or no thought given to the human suffering caused, or to the national economic interest. The sheep industry’s death by a thousand cuts is now unfolding in forestry, fishing, salmon farming, gas, and tourism. Rather than killing businesses and families, regulation should support our values, such as animal welfare, while improving our economic productivity.
The well intentioned, but uninformed inner-city voters need a wake-up call. Australia needs leaders that have the courage to trumpet our achievements and defend our economic interests. I’m not just talking about politicians; I’m talking about us.
DO SOMETHING
Like a three-legged stool, the sheep industry needs to have live export, processed meat, and wool markets to manage seasonal and market risks. Sheep export is particularly important to Western Australia as it is not reliable fattening country. Cattle export is even more important to northern Australia, as it is not fattening country either.
Despite our climatic and seasonal limitations, a humane export industry has developed, providing much needed food to the world. But the industry is vastly outgunned by urban activists and adversaries with no concern for the Australian economy.
Benno Sutherland, a livestock carrier from Ravensthorpe, WA. His business supports well paid jobs and enables him to sponsor local sports clubs. But much of his work has dried up.Photo: © Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council (used by permission)
Customers are in a state of disbelief and anger.
Livestock industries need the backing of the nation if they are to survive the onslaught of animal activists. Join the fight to protect our farming communities. Question the claims of the animal activists by referring to farmer representative bodies. Contest spurious claims with friends and families, and share your support for farmers with your elected representatives and on social media.
Three years is a long time in politics, and we live in dangerous times. A lifeline to keep the sheep export industry beyond 2028 is possible, but we all must join the fight. And we must not allow cattle farmers to suffer the same fate as the sheep export industry.
Marion Murphy is a Certified Practising Accountant with a passionate interest in regional Australia and its industries.
This article from the Spring 2025 edition of the IPA Review is written by accountant Marion Murphy.
