LIVEXchange 2025: Prominent live export industry leader looks back on pivotal two years in sector’s history

A prominent leader in the livestock export industry has reflected on a pivotal two years in the sector’s history as the 2028 ban on the live sheep trade by sea fast approaches. Speaking at the 2025 LIVEXchange conference at Crown Perth last month, Australian Livestock and Export Council chief executive Mark Harvey-Sutton cast a reflective eye over the impact of the last two years on the live sheep export trade. Mr Harvey-Sutton has been ALEC’s chief executive since 2019, after previously holding the role of rural affairs manager at the National Farmers’ Federation. He slammed the Federal Government’s decision to shut down the live sheep export trade by May 2028 as a “purely political decision” that had affected Australia’s marginalised rural and regional areas. “There are not too many big industry councils that are faced with the scenario where you have a government that’s looking to shut down a part of your industry — that’s an extremely challenging scenario,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said. “We need to stand up for rural Australia — and if anything, where we are now with live sheep is a cautionary tale. “We have to think more and more about what we did with Keep the Sheep, and what we might be able to do in the future — because I think we have to confront that reality.” He said the industry ban — cemented earlier this year following the Federal election — set a dangerous precedent for Australian agriculture and its sectors. “This is a red line for Australian agriculture — that you can have a policy to shut down an industry for political reasons,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said. “We presented to the Federal Government that evidence of the reform, the high standards of animal welfare that were in place, the things that had happened, how important the industry is to rural Australia. That was ignored.” He said steps were taken to form a grassroots political movement — Keep the Sheep — to lobby the State and Federal governments and heighten the presence of the issue in the media. Mr Harvey-Sutton said the movement gave producers and related industries an avenue to fight the “stupid” decision. “We took it to the front pages of the national press, it was on the radar — every political analysis leading into the Federal election raised live sheep as an issue,” he said. When more than 3000 vehicles took part in a convoy through Perth in March, Mr Harvey-Sutton said he was blown away by the size of the rally and the support of metropolitan residents. “It just grew — it was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “People were coming out of their shops, their cafes as the convoy went past — there were a number of people tooting their horns.” Despite targeting Keep the Sheep raising awareness of the ban in metropolitan areas, the movement fell short in the face of other issues such as the cost of living and housing affordability. “People had bigger issues on their mind, and I think that’s something we have to really contemplate as people that devote their time to rural and regional Australia,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said. “We can’t look at it as a failure. We have to look at it as the beginning, and we have to get angry because we have to be hurt. “We actually have to make people change their votes because of the big issues that are impacting rural Australia.”