West Australian agriculture figures say the federal government's ban on live sheep exports will hurt farmers and regional communities already dealing with challenging conditions.
With exports set to cease in 2028, supporters of the ban have argued the industry has plenty of time to prepare for the change, and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt says the government's $107 million transition package will provide adequate assistance.
Advocates have have hailed the ban's timeline, announced on Saturday, as a win for animal welfare, and a fulfilment of the government's election commitment to end the trade.
But farmers from sheep-related industries argue a decision made with animal welfare in mind will ultimately lead to worse outcomes for the animals and the people directly impacted.
WA Shearing Industry Association president Darren Spencer says his industry will be crippled without live export of sheep, accusing federal Labor of abandoning its working class roots in the sector.
The 1891 shearers' strike is considered a key factor in the creation of the Australian Labor Party.
Mr Spencer says the ban will see WA's already-shrinking sheep flock reduce even further, leaving many farmers worried for their future.
Based at Lake Grace, 320 kilometres south of Perth in the eastern Wheatbelt, the veteran shearer said the ban would have a ripple effect.
"Our staff contribute to so many local towns. People set themselves up and buy a house. It's going to be hard for them because they may have to move on," Mr Spencer said.
"Shearers struggling to make an income and a make a profit, they'll be thinking, 'It's probably just time I walk away'."
Coming off the back of a global pandemic where shearer availability was an issue, Mr Spencer added that time and money had been spent on training up industry-ready men and women to propel it forward.
"We've tried to nurture those people and better them in the industry. We need to keep those people employed," he said.
Money already lost
The WA government's Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development valued the state's sheep industry at $1.35 billion in 2021-2022.
Steven Bolt, a sheep producer and director of advocacy group The Livestock Collective, said challenging conditions already had farmers departing the industry and reducing their flocks.
Based on internal industry forecasting data, he said the state was on track to lose $500 million within the next two years due to declining sheep and wool production.
Mr Bolt said farmers reducing stock numbers had cited two-to-three month waits for abattoir space, with sheep that would normally be processed competing for space with animals that had previously been on-farm breeding flocks.
He said people were leaving the sheep industry, or significantly downsizing, because they had lost confidence in its future — something the export ban would only further reduce.
"We are seeing activists and inner-city votes take precedence over the science and the truth about a highly regulated industry, and the importance of that industry to the state," Mr Bolt said.
He said the average sheep price in WA had fallen $90 per head over the past two years, while the local mutton prices were currently a third of those in New South Wales.
"The wool industry will lose 25 per cent of its wool production by the middle of next year," Mr Bolt said.
He said other farmers chose not to mate their sheep last spring, reducing the amount of lambs on farms across the state.
Farmers destroying livestock
Tim Meecham operates a crossbred sheep enterprise at Quobba Station, north of Carnarvon.
With depressed livestock prices, high freight costs and years of dry seasonal conditions, he destroyed about 200 head of sheep this year and feared he would have to do it again soon.
"They weren't going to pay for freight, so I had to go and shoot them. It's a shit of a job," he said.
"I'm happy to go and pick Murray Watt up from the Carnarvon airstrip and take him out there and hand him a rifle. He can shoot them himself and see how it feels."
"[Live export] is one part of the industry [and] we need all parts there to keep the sheep industry in WA rolling.
"We are not New South Wales or Queensland, but they seem to have forgotten we are part of Australia."
Polling of 800 WA residents commissioned by the RSCPA last year (450 in metropolitan Perth, 350 in Regional WA) found 71 per cent of respondents supported the live export ban.
Minister Murray Watt has repeatedly referenced that polling since announcing Labor would pursue its election mandate to implement the ban, citing ongoing public support as a reason for the government's action.
'Screwing us over'
WA Farmers vice president and Kojonup farmer Steve McGuire said he was ready to "fight like hell" between now and May 1, 2028.
"Now when you go to a polling booth, you're going to see a farmer there saying, 'Put this mob last'," he said.
"We need time, and we need money. They are basically just screwing us over."
The fifth-generation farmer said producers around the state would be having tough conversations about what the future could look like for them.
"My wife and I even had that discussion: Do we keep farming because we don't know what to do next?
"No matter what we say or do, the government might just chop it off.
"Common sense and good argument obviously has nothing to do with it."