AGRICULTURAL NEWS - Animal welfare was taking a back seat as politics took over in the controversy over Australian live sheep exports to the Middle East.
After initially agreeing to await a government-ordered report on the trade after 2 400 sheep died during an ocean voyage, the opposition Labour Party announced that if it won in a future election, it would ban the live sheep trade worth around A$249 million (R2,36 billion) a year.
Labour agriculture spokesperson, Joel Fitzgibbon, said: “We see no future for the live sheep export trade. I accept that it will take a number of years but it can’t be a decade. If we want sheep meat producers to have sustainable profitability, we need to start working on that transition now.”
The Labour Party had previously said that it only wanted a suspension of live sheep exports during the hot Northern Hemisphere summer.
Meanwhile, minister of agriculture, David Littleproud, said that a review into the Middle Eastern summer sheep trade was due in two weeks.
“Labour has rushed to a knee-jerk ban, punishing farmers who have done no wrong,” he said in a statement. “Those farmers and businesses still traumatised by Labour’s snap ban on live exports in 2011 must be tearing their hair out.”
