Murray Watt continues to defend live export ban with an RSPCA survey – despite Voconiq’s three-year study

As Murray Watt continues to argue the live sheep trade has “lost community support”, farmers have questioned the veracity of a RSPCA-commissioned survey the Federal Agriculture Minister has backed his claims with. Senator Watt has faced increasing scrutiny from the Opposition and agricultural leaders over Labor’s plan to shut down live sheep exports by sea in May 2028. When asked recently why he was going ahead with the ban, Senator Watt said the industry had “lost community support a long time ago”. “Even surveys conducted in WA, the only State that’s doing this now, show that about 70 per cent of Western Australians support this trade being ended,” he told the ABC. “They support the idea of moving towards more onshore processing, which is more jobs, and more exports for Australia.” The survey Mr Watt referred to was commissioned by the RSPCA and conducted by McCrindle research — a New South Wales-based data provider — to gauge the WA public’s opinion on the live sheep trade. The online survey, which ran from May 8 to 11 in 2023, consisted of 800 anonymous respondents which were sourced by McCrindle’s survey partner, Cint. The respondents included a sample of 350 regional residents, which had a margin of error of 6 per cent, and a sample of 450 metropolitan residents, which had a margin of error of 5 per cent. The survey asked participants four questions about live sheep exports — including if they supported the Federal Government’s plan to phase out the trade. About 71 per cent of respondents responded with “yes, definitely”, or “yes, somewhat”. Mr Watt’s repeated references to the RSPCA survey have been met with backlash from industry stakeholders who have demanded the minister acknowledge a CSIRO-affiliated research company’s surveys — which paint a very different picture. Three separate surveys, conducted by Voconiq and each consisting of more then 4000 respondents, measured community sentiment towards live sheep exports over three years. The surveys were compiled in a 2023 report by LiveCorp, which indicated 29 per cent of respondents said live exports should be stopped regardless of the impact on farmers. Forty two per cent disagreed — up from 37 per cent in 2019. Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council CEO Mark Harvey-Sutton said the LiveCorp report was the “most rigorous community sentiment study in place” and Senator Watt was failing to “actually verify ambit claims around community support for the trade”. “The Government knows the best they have is a push poll from the RSPCA to demonstrate community support,” Mr Harvey-Sutton said. “They (LiveCorp) have extremely high standards in which they have to conduct their research, and to ignore that study, is the Government in fact ignoring its own framework, which is established to provide advice to itself.” Other questions asked by the RSPCA survey included how long respondents thought the phase out should take, and if respondents agreed to the Government supporting farmers and other supply chains to transition out of live sheep exports. Despite Senator Watt’s comments, the survey did not measure if residents were in favour of more onshore processing. When the RSPCA first released its survey results, Mr Harvey-Sutton called on the organisation to publish a full report on its findings “just as LiveCorp has done”. When asked by Countryman if the RSPCA could provide a report, an RSPCA spokesperson said the group only received raw data from McCrindle.