THE number of signatories backing the Keep the Sheep campaign against the Albanese Government’s phaseout of live sheep exports by sea climbed above 100,000 this morning, a day after a convoy of trucks along with farmers and rural people from across Australia converged on Canberra for the National Farmer Rally.

Federal Labor politicians, including Agriculture Minister Julie Collins and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, were invited to directly address the event at Parliament House, but declined to do so, the rally was told.

The rally was addressed by farming leaders from most Australian states and territories along with a number of politicians including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Federal Nationals Leader David Littleproud, who appeared among about 20 Coalition MPs on stage, and before Federal MPs Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter spoke.

Federal Nationals Leader David Littleproud said it had been 40 years since farmers had been forced to march on Parliament House to protest against the Federal Government.

“I’m going to give you a commitment right here today. The first Bill that I bring back to Parliament as the next Agriculture Minister is to repeal the live sheep export ban out of Western Australia,” Mr Littleproud said.

Federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton also recommitted to reversing what he described as a “terrible mistake” that would destroy entire rural communities and Australia’s incredibly important international reputation.

David Jochinke, president of the National Farmers Federation which organised the rally alongside the Keep the Sheep movement, said he was part of a delegation that was able to personally meet with Prime Minister Albanese half an hour before the event.

“We made it very clear we do not agree with the decision about the banning of live export of sheep, we made it very clear that we will not roll over on this issue,” he said.

He said that in keeping with the national anthem – ‘Advance Australia Fair’ – farmers and rural Australians wanted a fair go, but the Government was paying more attention to well resourced and funded alternative voices who where united against the agricultural sector.

“And we don’t think that they’re the ones that should be setting the policy.

“We are the interface between the environment and the consumers.

“The reality is we stand between starvation and prosperity of this nation.

“Bad ideas that are created from activist ideologies and that aren’t founded in farmers and fact will always be bad.”

WA livestock transporter and Keep the Sheep organiser, Ben Sutherland, said it was heart warming to see the people who had gathered at the Forecourt of Parliament House.

“I really think behind us (Federal Parliament) has not listened to what we have been saying,” he said.

“With the ban of live export of sheep by sea, that took 30 percent off my bottom line.

“At the end of that, how do you compute that as a transport owner, how do you compute that back into your sponsorship of your local communities, how do you compute that into your drivers and tell them there is probably not a job for them?

“All I have got to say, lets keep fighting for rural Australia, for our communities, our pubs, our IGAs, our schools, our sponsorships, our sporting groups, and everyone involved in rural Australia.”

Immediate past president of the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association David Connolly said it was a sad day when the very people who grow the food and fibre Australia needs to survive are treated so “badly and disrespectfully by their elected Government” they need to make the trip to Canberra to voice their collective grievances.

“To be honest, I am pretty cranky about it, that I have to be here at all.

“That a complete lack of respect and empathy from our own elected government has resulted in this, for all of us.

“I live in the Northern Territory, more than 4000 km away. A big drive and two aeroplanes to get here, to this miserable place, that for the good it has become, would have been better left as a sheep station.

“At least it may have been productive.”

Event MC, South Australian cattle producer Gillian Fennell, said rural communities were tired of having had their voices drowned out by activists “who don’t have to live with the consequences of the policies they push, who don’t have to see their communities destroyed because of decisions made in comfortable city chairs thousands of kilometres away”.

“They grow nothing, they produce nothing, they provide nothing, these organisations the animal/environmental activist groups who take millions of dollars in donations from good natured Aussies every year, yet never spend a single dollar of that money on actually doing anything…

“These groups who continually make us the villain in their twisted tales that tug on the heart strings of every day Australians who have never spent a day in the paddock..

“These are the people that our government listens to and we have had enough.”

WA Farmers president John Hassell said the legislation used to ban the live export trade was based on “innuendo, activism, emotion and a filthy little dirty deal with preferences to the Animal Justice Party in order to keep Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek in a seat, it was not based on science it was not based on evidence”.

He said he expected 30 to 40 communities in WA would be “really savagely affected” by the legislation.

“And it’s not just about sheep, there are so many other things. We heard about the cattle class action which the government still hasn’t paid and they’re just playing bastardry not paying it back.

“It’s about injecting compressed carbon into the Great Artesian Basin, it is about Murray darling buybacks, it’s about trying to can salmon farming in Tasmania, it’s about compulsory acquisition of land for renewables and it’s about fringe benefits tax – all things that are going to kill our regional communities.

“Because I’m damn sure this government does not like, in fact detests, regional communities and in regional Australia.”

Speakers at the rally included AgForce Qld president elect Shane McCarthy, NSW Farmers President Xavier Martin; Australian Livestock Road Transport Association executive director Rachel Smith; National Irrigators Council CEO Zara Lowein; Livestock SA vice president Allan Piggott and WoolProducers Australia CEO Jo Hall.

The online Keep the Sheep petition had been signed by 99,251 people after the rally concluded yesterday afternoon, which campaign members said is more than double the petition initially used as the reason to ban live sheep.