AUSTRALIA’S wool sector leaders have united to call for more federal and state government action about the impacts of the proposed live sheep export ban on the Western Australian industry.
A joint statement from grower, broker, exporter and service provider leaders after a crisis meeting in WA last week cast wool as ‘the forgotten casualty of the live sheep export ban.’
Federal and WA State Government leaders were invited to the meeting but failed to attend or send representatives.
WoolProducers Australian chief executive officer Jo Hall said the governments, at a state and national level, speak of creating new markets for boxed meat and value adding meat processing domestically.
“Nowhere do we hear of what is being done to address the critical issues that are impacting the wool industry.”
“We have previously raised these issues with Ministers Watt, Collins and Jarvis, but it continues to fall on deaf ears, while we are watching the decimation of the Western Australian wool industry in real time,” she said.
National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia president Mr Rowan Woods said while the council understood the challenges that its Western Australian members have been facing, to come over and hear firsthand the difficulties that the entire Western wool supply-chain are experiencing has been alarming.
“It is important that our Western Australian colleagues know that we stand with them from a national perspective.
“We will continue to have conversations to determine how we can practically assist the fight against the live export ban,” he said.
Mr Woods said the council would consider what it could do to support the WA industry and the Keep the Sheep campaign.
But he said there was a need to raise awareness, especially nationally, that the issue was not just about the live sheep trade or sheep meat production.
“It’s much more far-reaching than that – not is it the wool brokers and their staff and their livelihoods.”
He said the ban would also impact the test houses – with AWTA having a lot less wool to be tested — transport companies who move wool once it’s sold, the wool exporter with less wool to buy.”
“The Federal Government is ignorant to the ramifications; they’re not concerned about the collateral damage.
“As far as we are concerned they are only interested in inner-city Melbourne votes and the people of Western Australia and the wool industry at large is collateral damage.”
Mr Woods was unsure what the Federal Government could do to support wool growers through the transition.
“Keeping people viable on the land would be one thing, but they are doing everything they can to do the opposite.
“It is just so expensive to grow wool.”
Mr Woods said he had been told anecdotally that “100 percent of the next generation” in the New England area of New South Wales have said they won’t be bothered with sheep.
“We can’t find anyone who is staying in sheep once their father finishes.
“People have just had enough, it’s just not viable for them – they will go to cattle or something else,” he said.
“I don’t think the Federal Government cares, they didn’t even bother to send anyone to that crisis meeting – no government representative, tyre-kicker, coffee maker turned up.
“This was the first national footprint meeting about the issue,” Mr Woods.
“We get a very distinct and clear impression this is a ‘we don’t care’ issue.”
Ram sales down, but full impact not yet known
Despite the Meat & Livestock Australian-Australian Wool Innovation October Sheep Producers Sentiment Survey finding that wool grower nett sentiment has dropped another 4 points to minus 19 nationally and WA grower sentiment went to minus 30, industry surveys have been unable to capture the full impact of the trade ban policy.
“We don’t know how bad it’s going to be, how could we?
Mr Woods said the Keep the Sheep campaign is about getting into the minds of “decent-minded people” who understood what the policy would do to communities.
“There is a real feeling out here, we can’t change the policy, we’ve got to change the government.”
WA Merinos vice-president Grantly Mullan outlined the decline in sales figures for Western Merino seed stock producers at the meeting
“During the past two years the number of WA stud Merino rams sold has declined from 13,652 to an estimated 6009 rams,” he said.
“The wool industry has a proud history, and we have to remain positive about our future because it is such a great product.
“But our governments must start acknowledging what this decision is doing to not only the confidence of our industry, but also decisions that are being made on farm right now,” Mr Mullan said.
Less sheep to be shorn in Western Australia
Western Australian Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer painted the grim picture facing the wool harvesting sector, citing figures from a recent industry survey.
“We’ve heard directly from 27 members that just over 70pc of them were shearing less than what they usually do which has resulted in 193,500 less sheep being shorn, and many of their producer clients reporting that they have not joined their flock this year.”
“We have consistently been telling governments that this is not only about the meat and wool trade, but this will also impact regional communities and the people living within in them – you take one shearing team out, that’s 10 people out of your community,” he said.
“The Federal Government has said that this decision was based on animal welfare, but what about the impacts on the welfare of the people involved?” Mr Spencer said.
Federal and state government responses
A Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry spokesperson said the Albanese Labor Government has commenced delivery of the $139.7 million transition package for the phase out of live sheep exports by sea and is committing new funding to help support industry.
“The government’s transition plan and assistance package takes a whole of supply chain approach.
A $27 million investment is being made to enable the industry to capitalise on growing consumer demand in Australia and overseas for high-quality sheep products, food and fibre,” the spokesperson said.
“A co-design process is being undertaken with sheep producers and supply chain participants in relation to $45.5 million set aside for this purpose.”
A WA State Government spokesperson said the Cook Labor Government has been clear and consistent from the start – “we don’t support the Federal Government’s live sheep export ban.”
“Following the passing of the Federal Government’s legislation to end live sheep export by sea, Minister Jarvis met with WoolProducers Australia, Stud Merino Producers Association of WA and the Western Australian Shearing Industry Association to ask what might be needed to support the WA wool industry and encouraged these organisations to engage with the Federal Government’s transition plan.”
Ms Jarvis’ office said unfortunately she invited to the crisis event on short notice and was unable to attend as it was a parliamentary sitting day. Since the minister’s meetings with industry, no further correspondence has been received from these organisations until this recent event invitation.
What a wonderful summation of the creeping socialism we are all being subjected too. My employment days included four years with a wholesale butcher who had various shops, leased the boning room for mutton and beef, and also exported both products. Following along I commenced a near thirty year journey with the Japanese Company Toyobo Ltd as they established Canobolas Wool Topmaking pl in Orange NSW. (Toyo means oriental and bo is an abbreviation of the term Boseki which means spinning ie. the oriental spinning company of Osaka. We had 100+ employees, worked 3×8 hour shits five days per week. When the demand was greater we would go to a six and sometimes seven-day working week.
So, on a local front we lost CWT, Macquarie Worsteds – Albury and Orange, meat works and Email Electrolux. Let’s not forget nationally, Holden, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota.
The void between metro and regional is getting wider and the shops are full of food. Most consumers have no concept of how it all works. The so-called national news is all about the metro areas, I no longer watch nor listen. If we did not have mining we would be bankrupt and if the US were to go down economically the light of democracy would be flickering as the dictatorships gather their thoughts.
The philosophy of Cleisthenes has travelled a great distance from the Glory that was Greece, through SPQR and Julius Caesar to Londinium, the British Empire to the desk in the Oval Office.
We best remember what side our bread is buttered on.
Cook and Jarvis do not care about us in the sheep industry. They are just bowing down to federal Labor.
The government is allowing the heart AND soul to be ripped out of of the primary industries, once the backbone of this country. Manfactured in Australia, what a joke the country will be. This is about shifting world economies from importing more crap, first world countries become third world and third world becomes first world, it’s a national disgrace.
Disgraceful, again another nail in the coffin for the sheep industry and people in rural areas. Where is the education in schools in the cities about how the country was built on the sheep’s back? The Pioneers in the city and the country would be rolling in their graves.
Recognise that Labor, Greens and the Teals want to end agriculture and turn the land back to bush to save the planet.
They don’t know you can’t run an economy from the city on ideology. They are Communists.
The only recourse is to resoundingly vote them out.
Keep the sheep, Bin the Ban. We don’t need more productive land turned over to blue gums. We need rural communities to thrive as they have done for more than 100 years. Make more noise. Remind Albanese that we vote, and we care.
I have been spinning, weaving, knitting, felting and every thing to do with wool. Wool is becoming so dear sadly most people have turn to synthetic fibre because they can’t afford to buy wool. Governments make promises, but never carry them through.
Carol Andersen
This is a woke agenda that has been going on for years in incremental steps to rid the world of red meat and totally destroy agriculture. Wool is just collateral damage. Is this why there is a huge push by governments to amass large swathes of land for national parks in NSW for their green agenda along with hundreds of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, also for their solar and wind fallacies.
Look at the United States — Bill Gates is the biggest private land owner and not one steak coming off it.
We all need a voice together, whether you have sheep, cattle, crops, veggies or chickens, the list goes on.
I have said before, control the food, control the people as the elitists say you will own nothing And be happy.
We all need to stand together and unite.
Albanese and Labor are simply tone deaf and demonstrate their total lack of knowledge about farming, sheep breeding and wool production in Australia.
Some questions for Albanese:
Where does the wool in your expensive suit come from?
Where does the leather in your RM Williams boots come from?
Where does the lanolin that makes up a good percentage of the face creams and cosmetics female politicians use come from?
The list goes on.
Again and again Albanese and Labor demonstrate their total ignorance about agricultural products and farming and also total lack of care about Western Australia – apart from wanting votes.
The fact that neither federal nor state Labor politicians failed to turn up to a major conference or send representatives demonstrates their ignorance and city-centric attitudes.
Boycott Labor at the 2025 state and federal elections.
Labor doesn’t care about agriculture any more. They are the major Green party and the minority do-gooders party.
They have lost me. Frank Walden
I am a sixth generation farmer and my family have been farming sheep for 190 years. Never in that time has our industry been under such threat from government intervention as we are today. We need to stand together and fight for our industry and not throw our hands in the air and say that it’s all too hard. We are the best in the world at what we do and we need to make government realise that. Leave us alone to do what we do.
Albanese and Labor politicians continue to demonstrate that they simply have no idea about farming, agriculture, sheep breeding or live meat exports.
They demonstrate time after time they don’t know, don’t care and are totally disinterested in WA, apart from getting our votes.
Keep the Sheep. Don’t vote Labor.
New Zealand ended the live sheep trade and they still have a strong sheep farming industry. Innovation is the key.
Get your facts right Catherine.
Ardern banned live exports. The NZ government is working to reinstate it.
Why ban an increasing trade? Yes increasing. They are the facts.
I don’t really know the sheep numbers to compare both New Zealand to Western Australia, but going on land mass WA is roughly ten times the size of NZ. I’m thinking you could correlate numbers with size so in this case banning live sheep from WA in my eyes wouldn’t ever compare to NZ. It would be devastating and the ripple affect would be catastrophic for all the links in the chain, including breeders, station hands, shearers, transporters, agents and port employees, Then the ships and crews that are purposely built.
Keep the Sheep.
No we don’t, it’s disappearing faster than Australia’s. Future generations will shake their heads in disbelief at the collapse of the wool industry.
The wool industry is in existential crisis. The price paid for wool is out of pace with the rising cost of production. Wool growers are shifting emasse to shedding sheep or other enterprises. The Chinese buyers clearly do not care. David Jacobs, wool grower, NSW.
Another moronic government decision based on dogma. They have not and will not listen to reason or come out to see what damage this policy will inflict on WA rural communities. We in WA need to make sure that come the federal and state elections, we shut them down. Then whoever is in power will have to pull their heads in.
There is no indication from meat processors that they intend to invest the capital to take excess sheep from the effects of export ban.
Mixed sheep and cropping farmers apply sheep flocks to paddock rotation weed control. Smaller flock numbers will mean more cash is spent on chemical weed control. Canberra Labor politicians have sold the farmers down the creek for inner city votes – not the Aussie way.
I am an experienced 86 year-old who has devoted his life and wellbeing to this industry.
This will destroy Australia as we know it far more deeply than any fool in government who thinks he or she, has the right to openly wreck Australia’s existence.
I’m an 84 year-old butcher and have worked in abattoirs but believe in live export. Kick them out of government. They did the same to cattle.
Labor pollies always have been Chardonnay socialists, like capitalism. I am interested in country agriculture’s problems. Labor enriches Melbourne and Sydney inner city areas at the expense of rural areas. One’s vote at the next election is crucial to save our country.