Canberra to provide $32 million to help Western Australia’s sheep industry transition
The Federal Government will provide additional funding to help Western Australia’s sheep industry transition away from live exports, following a backlash from farmers and the state government.
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00:00The Federal Government has announced an additional $32.7 million to help those impacted by Federal
00:09Labor's plans to end the live sheep trade in May 2028.
00:14This is in addition to $107 million announced back in May this year, when the Government
00:21announced their plans to end the trade in 2028.
00:25And it's going toward things like promoting WA sheep meat both around Australia and around
00:31the world.
00:32And also wellbeing supports for WA farmers impacted things like financial counselling.
00:39This was the Federal Agriculture Minister, Julie Collins' first visit to WA since taking
00:45on the ag portfolio in July this year.
00:48And she says this extra cash shows the Federal Government is listening to WA farmers' concerns.
00:54We want to work collaboratively and listen to the farmers in Western Australia and people
01:00along the supply chain about how do we take advantage of this.
01:04Here are some great opportunities for what is a growing market around the world.
01:08We want to grow with those growing global trends to have more sheep meat processed here
01:13in Australia and exported around the world.
01:16I believe there are about 4,000 commercial scale sheep farms in Western Australia.
01:22But it's also the communities around those farms, adjacent industries like shearing,
01:28like truck drivers, also the abattoirs concerns about the viability of those if farmers reduce
01:35their sheep flocks.
01:36So it's really a ripple effect.
01:39One sheep farmer on ABC Radio Perth this morning described it as from bugger all to stuff all.
01:47Ultimately a lot of these farmers say we don't want your transition funding, we want you
01:53to ditch this ban.
01:55Federal Labor of course says that's not going to happen, we took this promise to two elections.
02:00The Coalition on the other hand says if they were elected they would overturn this ban.
02:05So despite this extra funding I don't think we've heard the end of this issue.