John Hassell, President, WAFarmers

Sheep farmers in Western Australia have been told by the Federal Labor Government that we have lost our social licence for live exports.

Which raises the question what exactly is this social licence we are being held to account to?

• How is it defined? 
• Who sets the standards?
• Who determines if we pass or fail? 

Is it like cultural heritage, never to be defined and the community is left to trust that those with the ‘knowledge’ will be the custodians of preventing harm at any cost?

Who are these people with the ‘knowledge’? What is their licence to operate?

Will social licence, over time, become, like heritage, an intangible that moves according to the knowledge holders beliefs, attracting those who simply want to profit or progress their political agenda, be it veganism or anti development?

WAFarmers has written to the Federal Minister asking him to ‘Please Explain’ how he defines this social licence and what was the trigger that determined the end of the live export trade.

If it’s a licence it must have some standards attached, a governance structure, information sources, rights of appeal, an informed process that industry is part of developing.

Otherwise, it is nothing more than a means for the progressive activists to fast track their political agenda, bypassing the long pathway through our structured political process.

If live export of sheep has lost its its social licence, how do we know how live cattle is travelling?

Are they close to failing or are they passing with flying colours? 

How is irrigated cotton or rice going or does it depend if those marking their scorecard have been influenced by last night’s ABC story on climate change with images of drying rivers as they sip their imported French mineral water over breakfast on the Yarra?

Where do the regulators fit into the marking of the scorecard? Does the Federal Department of Agriculture, which has failed multiple times over decades to ensure compliance with its own standards on the export boats, also get its licence withdrawn by PETA or the RSPCA?  Or are they irrelevant to the whole discussion? 

Does the APVMA, who set the standards for ag chemicals, get told by the green activist groups when it should withdraw glyphosate or paraquat from the market?

As farmers trying to operate in this new age of reason without logic, we need help here.

The standards we were following were the printed ones on the government web site, but it appears the government was operating to another hidden set of licensing rules that even their departments were not aware of. 

Can we see these new standards? 

Or is it that social licence is a political term used by the Government when it has made a rash decision on the run, a desperate attempt at an excuse to hide their blatant vote buying for a seat or two at the expense of a large community of people in regional Western Australia?

If this is the new world, then the Government has opened the door to every single issue activist group in Australia to pursue their narrow agenda against everything from coal mines to cattle, uranium mines to nuclear subs, phosphate and paraquat.

It is a recipe for a declining Australia.

If it was a rash decision then it’s time to reverse it and accept that the industry has done everything it has been asked for by the Government and should be allowed to continue.  If not then this decision marks the end of agriculture in Australia as we know it and the Government should tell us.

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