Keep the Sheep plans second rally through Perth CBD as live sheep export firms as Federal election issue

Farmers lobbying to save live sheep exports will take to the streets of Perth this month as the issue heats up ahead of the Federal election. Thousands of people and hundreds of trucks are expected to take part in the Keep the Sheep campaign-organised movement on March 28. Four convoys, starting at Bedfordale, Mundijong, Neerabup and Fremantle, will meet at 7.30am before following a set route through Perth before converging at Quarry Farm at Whitby at 10am. Keep the Sheep campaigners have mobilised against Federal Labor MPs in recent weeks, targeting marginal seats like Tangney, Hasluck, Swan, Pearce and Cowan as voters wait for the date of the Federal election to be called. Keep the Sheep spokesman Ben Sutherland said the movement would be “peaceful and respectful” but still send a clear message. “We want to let the Federal Labor Government know rural Australia can’t be taken for granted,” he said. “We are expecting thousands of people and want really to hit those electorates we want to target. “We are urging people to put Labor last.” The Albanese Government has legislated that live sheep exports will end by May 2028, while the Coalition has vowed to overturn it. The phase-out was a 2018 and 2022 Labor election commitment that has proved popular with animal activist groups but sparked serious concern among rural communities in WA. The upcoming rally comes after more than 1700 vehicles and 3000 people took part in a similar movement on May 28 last year. Road trains, utes and buses emblazoned with the campaign slogan gathered at the same four mustering points before making their way towards the CBD at 8am. As well as farmers, the rally has attracted truckies, shearers, regional leaders and pastoralists — some of whom have travelled thousands of kilometres — as the entire agriculture sector unites against Labor’s controversial policy. Rally organiser Paul Brown, who owns a cattle feedlot at Port Hedland, 1630km north-east of Perth, said last year’s rally was one of WA’s “biggest agriculture protests” in living memory. “That just shows the level of frustration that the agricultural community has with both the Albanese Labor Government and the Cook Labor Government over the last couple of years,” he said. Labor’s popularity plummeted in the regions during the recent State election, with the party losing key regional seats including Geraldton and Albany, and with voting still under way this week also looked set to lose Warren-Blackwood and Murray-Wellington. It came after WA Labor hit record levels of regional representation in the country after the 2021 landslide election, as country candidates rode the red wave of Mark McGowan’s popularity all the way to State Parliament. But Opposition Leader Shane Love, who won the new seat of Mid-West for the WA Nationals, said country voters were feeling disillusioned after four years of a Labor Government.