Boyup Brook sheep farmer Phil Corker calls live export ban “arrogant” as legislation passes Federal Parliament

A Boyup Brook sheep farmer and small business owner has described the Federal Government’s incoming live sheep export ban as “arrogant”. Legislation to ban the trade passed Federal Parliament on Monday night, setting up the end of the industry by 2028. While they will be not directly impacted by the ban, Phil Corker and his family run Blackwood Sheepmaster - a Kulikup business which supplies rams and ewes. He supports the Keep The Sheep campaign, arguing the live export industry appeals to international buyers. “It’s a little bit arrogant of Australia to say, ‘no, you’re not going to get live sheep — which is what the customer wants,” Mr Corker said. “Their customs and want as a customer dictates the sheep be live — and we’re going to be arrogant enough to tell them, ‘no you’re going to get them in a box’,” he said. Producers and others involved in the industry will be given four years to transition to local processing, but Mr Corker is pessimistic about whether it is possible by the deadline. “Processors are saying they can handle the numbers of sheep that are going to be needed if the live sheep trade went down. But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for a minute,” he said. “The delays in processing that we’ve seen in the last eight months has been crippling to farmers — you’ve got delays in processing of up to 10 weeks.” Any delays mean farmers hold onto sheep for longer, adding to the costs such as feed. Mr Corker said the impacts of the ban will go beyond farmers with a business model currently including live export. He highlighted trades and truck drivers in the live sheep export industry throughout regional communities who are set to be impacted in the transition to processing meat in Australia. “It hurts my school, my community, my business, my workplace,” Mr Corker said. “You can kiss the small family farms goodbye.” Attending the hearing in Muresk Institute last month with his family, Mr Corker said he was “humbled” by the turnout and overwhelmed by the people from “all walks of life” supporting Keep The Sheep. “(However, the government) didn’t even have the guts at Muresk to drive through us — they came through the paddock. They came in the back door,” he said. In response to the government’s welfare claims for live sheep on boats, he said the industry has “cleaned up” its act since its “darkest hour. “We now have the world leading animal health standards — so if they truly believed in animal welfare, they’d let us continue.”