Kay Hull, former member for the Riverina, said it was of ‘paramount’ importance to improve the sector rather than to just shut it down.

The bill Ms Hull is referring to was introduced by Liberal MP Sussan Ley earlier this week and seeks to ban live sheep exports to the Middle East. Starting the ban during the northern hemisphere summer months in 2019 and closing it down entirely in five years.

Ms Hull said this is exactly what happened with the greyhound industry.

“You cannot shut down an industry without giving it an opportunity to make the necessary changes,” she said. 

“We need to carefully ensure we have rigorous controls and rigorous principles to ensure the live export trade is done in a humane way and the sheep are in the best possible conditions with significant penalties for those who do not comply.” 

Ms Hull also cautioned that such a ban would have an impact on the wider international community. 

“They will have a food shortage,” she said. 

“This is what happened with the cattle industry, we left nations that were dependent on us, we left them without food.” 

Farrer MP Sussan Ley said when introducing the bill to Parliament, the case for continuing long haul live sheep exports fails on both economic animal welfare grounds.

“Only six per cent of our sheep and lamb offtake are exported live,” she said. “If we set a five year end date investors can have the certainty and confidence to build new processing capacity.

“The live sheep trade is in terminal decline, dropping by two thirds in the last five years.

“The demand for live sheep comes from its cheap retail price due to government subsidies, not cultural or refrigeration reasons.”

Ms Ley said every Middle Eastern country accepts Australian Halal slaughter and the subsidies are phasing out, with Bahrain ending theirs in 2015 going from 325,000 live sheep from Australia to zero.