Cheryl Forrest-Smith

Australia’s parliament has just passed historic legislation to bring to an end, decades of sickening suffering and savage treatment of sheep in the live export trade. This has been hard fought and is the first government in Australian history to make such a monumental decision in prioritising animal welfare. Worthy, surely, of celebration. A victory for compassion over dwindling profit. But you give a strongly one-sided report enabling a ‘Farmy Army’ vet, employed on the live export ships, to speak for live sheep export farmers, unchallenged, about how they are going to overturn it. Where is the balanced reporting? Why didn’t you interview Lyn White AM, Animals Australia’s Director of Strategy, who has spent heartbreaking decades gathering evidence on systemic animal cruelty on the ships and at the destinations? Or Dr Lyn Simpson, whistleblower after being an on-board vet for 57 live export voyages? BTW - Nationally, live sheep exports make up less than 0.1% of Australia’s agriculture exports. The number of sheep live exported has plummeted by 90 per cent over the past two decades, & the value of Australia’s chilled and frozen lamb and mutton exports to the Middle East is already eight times the value of the live sheep trade ($632m vs $77m, ABS 2022-23). Please take a moment to view: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalsAustralia/videos/953596563120297/