WA Live Export Sheep Transition Package Under the AGORA Microscope
Last week I questioned whether the WA Sheep Industry Roadmap spent too much time explaining how we arrived at our current position and not enough time discussing what success looks like going forward.
Having now reviewed where a significant portion of the Federal Government’s $139.8 million live sheep export transition package has been allocated, I remain concerned that the industry is witnessing a similar pattern.
The package was promoted as transition assistance for an industry directly impacted by the phase-out of live sheep exports. Yet much of the funding announced to date appears to have been directed towards government agencies, trade promotion programs, advocacy positions, administration, counselling services and processing infrastructure.
Many of these activities may have merit in their own right. However, that is not the point.
The live export industry consisted of exporters, employees, livestock transport operators, shipping providers, contractors, support businesses and regional communities whose livelihoods were built around the trade. These are the people facing the most immediate consequences of the policy decision.
What is harder to understand is the decision to allocate $40 million specifically towards expanding WA processing capacity. The rationale appears to be that additional capacity is needed to absorb sheep previously destined for live export. However, the more fundamental question is whether capacity is actually the issue.
Western Australia has seen a significant contraction in processor numbers over the past decade, with several facilities closing, being mothballed or operating only intermittently, suggesting a degree of latent capacity already exists within the system.
The challenge facing WA producers is arguably not a lack of processing capacity, but a lack of competition. The live export trade provided producers with an alternative market and a significant source of procurement competition. Its removal has fundamentally altered the competitive landscape.
Prior to the ban, multiple live export operators competed alongside processors for sheep procurement.
The phase-out of live sheep exports has not removed a single competitor from the market; it has removed an entire competing market channel and several active export buyers. While processors have inherited responsibility for processing sheep that previously had access to an export pathway, they have also become beneficiaries of a market with substantially reduced procurement competition.
Against that backdrop, directing the largest identified allocation from the transition package towards expanding WA processing capacity raises a legitimate question. If the policy decision has already strengthened the competitive position of domestic processors through the removal of several competing export buyers, is this funding addressing the industry’s most pressing challenge, or is it overlooking the more fundamental issue of maintaining competition for producers?
Likewise, funding directed towards international market development, overseas trade representation and generic sheepmeat promotion may benefit the broader Australian sheep industry, but those benefits are spread nationally and do not necessarily address the specific impacts being experienced in Western Australia as a direct result of the live export ban.
The allocation of additional funding to Meat & Livestock Australia also raises questions.
MLA’s core role is already funded through transaction levies paid by livestock producers across Australia. Research, market development and sheepmeat promotion sit at the heart of MLA’s existing responsibilities. While additional marketing activity may benefit the broader industry, it is reasonable to ask whether allocating transition funding to these activities represents new assistance for affected businesses, or simply additional funding for functions MLA was already established to perform.
The uncomfortable question that needs to be asked is whether this funding was ever truly intended to compensate those affected by the live sheep export ban. Looking at the allocations announced so far, many appear to support government agencies, marketing programs and broader industry initiatives, while comparatively little seems directed towards those who have suffered the most direct consequences of the policy itself.
Perhaps most concerning is that several of the announced initiatives appear to be activities that governments would ordinarily be expected to fund regardless.
Trade promotion, overseas representation, market development, counselling services and industry engagement all have a place. But calling them transition assistance does not necessarily make them transition assistance.
Industry deserves greater transparency. Not just on how much money has been allocated, but on who has actually benefited and whether those beneficiaries are the people who have borne the greatest cost of the policy decision.
If this package was intended to assist those affected by the live sheep export ban, how much of the $139.8 million will ultimately reach the businesses, workers and communities that have borne the direct economic cost of the decision?
That is the question producers, exporters and regional communities should be asking.
Because looking at the allocations announced to date, many would be forgiven for wondering whether this has been a genuine transition package at all, or simply a collection of existing government and industry priorities wrapped in new packaging.