Jarvis pushes for more phase-out funding while Keep The Sheep campaign hunts for more volunteers

As farmers came together for the Mingenew Midwest Expo, it was hard to ignore the elephant, or rather, the “sheep in the room”, as WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis put it. The Keep The Sheep slogans were hard to miss at the Expo, making an appearance in the form of bumper stickers, hats and T-shirts. Campaign spokesman Paul Brown and his family manned a tent which was conveniently next to the main stage, where he gave talks about the grassroots campaign to save WA’s live sheep export trade. He called on more volunteers to join the movement, which has now geared its efforts towards toppling the Labor Government in the next Federal election in a bid to have the live export ban repealed. Ms Jarvis made an appearance on the expo’s second day to attend a networking brunch for rural women, and addressed some of the main concerns in the audience. “It has been a difficult time climatic-wise, and I also probably need to address the elephant in the room, or the sheep the room,” Ms Jarvis said in her opening statement. “I know it’s been challenging for those of you who are in sheep, with the looming ending of live export in a couple of years.” Speaking to Countryman, Ms Jarvis said she had an “excellent working relationship” with the new Federal Agriculture Minster, Julie Collins, and the live export issue was “front-of-mind” in their dealings. She said she hoped to bring Ms Collins to WA “in the near future” and work with her on making a transition package that would “give people some certainty”. Ms Jarvis said it was “no secret” she and Premier Roger Cook opposed the ban, but she acknowledged legislation enshrining it in law had been passed. Her next step, she said, would be convincing Ms Collins to stump up a better transition package than the $107 million in Federal funding currently on the table. “My job now is to make sure we get the best package that we can in WA, so those conversations are continuing with the new minister,” Ms Jarvis said. However, Mr Brown said industry confidence had already slipped, and the impacts on the sheep and wool industry were “already flowing through”. He referred to studies such as Meat and Livestock Australia’s latest Sheep Producers Intentions Survey, which forecast WA’s wether flock would drop by 49 per cent from 1.54 million this year to about 787,000 in 2025, and also showed a strong negative sentiment overall for the State’s wool industry. “(The ban) will have a cascading effect, and that is what this Government doesn’t understand,” Mr Brown said. While Ms Jarvis did not skirt around the live export topic at the Expo, it was a different story for her Federal counterpart, who attended the LambEx conference in Adelaide. Ms Collins turned down several requests for interviews from media during the annual conference, but briefly mentioned the live export ban in her address to attendees. She acknowledged the decision to ban the live trade was “not universally supported”. “But it’s not a recent decision — it has been our policy since 2018. We made a commitment,” Ms Collins said. Before boarding her plane out of Adelaide, Ms Collins told industry publication Sheep Central she wanted to “engage with the industry first”. “I’ve been talking with the Western Australian Government — I’ve already had some initial discussions,” she said. “My job now is to make the transition as smooth as possible.” Red meat industry expert Peter Barnard also spoke at LambEx, and called on the agriculture industry to work together to overturn the ban. “No amount of compensation is sufficient,” he said during a fiery speech. “If industry focuses on the adequacy of the transition package, then it will have lost sight of the bigger fight at hand.” Australian Livestock Exporters Council CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton said Dr Barnard’s words were “encouraging”. “The transition package is manifestly inadequate. The flow-on effects of the ban will traumatise farmers and their families for decades,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said. “His (Dr Barnard’s) words were a warning and a rallying cry.” As 2024 enters its third quarter, Ms Collins is yet to provide any more details on the transition support package first announced on May 11, setting the transition time line behind the schedule recommended by an independent panel. Senator Murray Watt, before departing the Federal agriculture portfolio, failed to respond to questioning about the transition plan’s progress.