Perth Voice Interactive

RUTH GOURLEY is a spokesperson for Stop Live Exports, a WA-based, community-led organisation that advocates for the end of live animal exports from Australia.

IF you don’t have facts or public opinion on your side, try to manufacture a culture war.

So the reasoning seems to go among the live animal export lobby, which in a flurry of media activity over the past month has taken aim at Fremantle-based animal protection organisation Stop Live Exports, as well as the Keep the Sheep Here campaign, which highlights the suffering of sheep on live export ships and supports the government’s plan to phase out the trade by 2028.

Those with vested interests have been quick to use tired tropes that the animal protection groups involved are based outside of WA, and are a front for “vegan activists”.

This simply isn’t true – more than seven in 10 everyday Australians, including Western Australians, support the phase out. 

Whether meat-eater or vegan, living in the city or the country, most compassionate, fair-minded Australian voters want to see this cruel trade end.

What I found interesting in the latest accusations were the attempts to suggest that Keep the Sheep Here and its supporters are “extremists” for backing the phase-out of live sheep exports, and that we’re not supportive of creating jobs locally in the transition to onshore processing of sheep meat.

It raises the question: Is it really “extremist” to believe sheep should be slaughtered in Australia, close to where they are raised and under Australian standards, instead of enduring weeks at sea and extreme pain when their throat is cut without being stunned? 

If so, that would make every animal welfare and veterinary organisation in Australia an extremist.

Is it “extremist” to want to call time on a trade that exposes sheep to overcrowded and filthy conditions, extreme heat and poor ventilation, high levels of ammonia from urea, and incessant noise, light and movement?

The fact is that ships are no place for sheep. 

They are subjected to 24/7 fluoro lighting, the deafening sound from ventilation systems and ship engines, and the unpredictable motion of the ships – heaving, swaying, surging, rolling, pitching and yawing, for days and weeks on end. 

That’s in addition to being made to stand in their own waste.

Live export companies will claim that improvements have been made to welfare standards. 

But regulatory reforms have not and cannot fix the trade. 

Data gathered by on-board independent observers on more than 53 live sheep export journeys since 2018 shows that sheep were starving on 80 per cent of those voyages, and were suffering from heat stress on 60 per cent.

Stop Live Exports believes there’s nothing extreme about wanting to stop such appalling and ongoing cruelty to animals.

Likewise, there’s nothing “extreme” about backing the transition to the onshore processing of sheep meat to create and support Australian jobs.

The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, for example, has suggested the transition to more onshore processing could add up to 800 additional direct jobs and many more indirect jobs. 

The federal government’s $139.7 million package is there to support the producers and supply chains transition.

To be clear, Keep the Sheep Here is a national campaign that represents the views of most Australians who support the phase-out of live sheep exports. 

We are a broad church of fair-minded and compassionate people right across the country—including in WA—who simply want animals to be treated better, and jobs to be kept in Australia.

It’s time for the live export sector to quit the divisive culture war rhetoric and accept the inevitable transition to sheep meat exports – a sustainable and valuable alternative.