Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton.

LIVESTOCK exporters have described the Albanese Government’s expenditure of $2.4 million on advertising its phaseout of live sheep exports by seas as politically motivated and “absolutely galling.”

The Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council said today that the Albanese Government had spent a staggering $2.4 million advertising the ban on exporting live sheep by sea after 1 May 2028.

This represented 49 percent of all advertising by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry since 2022, ALEC said.

ALEC chief executive officer Mark Harvey-Sutton said the “absolutely galling” expenditure was a gross misuse of taxpayer funds and came at the expense of other important issues.

“What we can see is that the department has spent a staggering sum advertising the policy.

“Our calculations show that 49pc of all DAFF advertising since 2022 was dedicated to the ban,” he said.

ALEC said despite biosecurity scares that have taken place in this term, the department spent nowhere near this amount, even though the consequences of a potential FMD outbreak have been modelled at costing the Australian economy up to $80 billion. 

“It’s clear that this advertising was being used to spruik the policy into east coast locations where the government hopes there is sympathy for the ban, rather than to farmers who will be hurt by it,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said.

ALEC said the ban will have ramifications for the sheep industry nationally, but will hit Western Australia the hardest.

The council noted that the government placed ads in regions that don’t export sheep, such as Bega in NSW and even ran an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald. At Senate Estimates, the government claimed the majority of the ads ran in WA; however documents obtained under Freedom of Information suggest that this is not the case, ALEC said.

Mr Harvey-Sutton said that the decision to spend such a large proportion of the budget on this particular policy and advertising it to unaffected people was ‘politically motivated’.

“The directive to spend such an enormous chunk of taxpayer funds on promoting the live sheep ban would have had to be signed off by the Minister.

“This is just another slight from a Government that doesn’t care about farmers, their families or the 3000 people who will lose their jobs because of this horrendous policy,” he said.

“Sheep Producers Australia’s role is to advocate for the producers and their families bearing the brunt of this misguided policy — one that appears driven more by political appeal in inner-city electorates than by evidence or outcomes.”