![The Senate has voted down a motion to hold an Inquiry into legislation seeking to ban the live sheep by sea export trade. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos The Senate has voted down a motion to hold an Inquiry into legislation seeking to ban the live sheep by sea export trade. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/230597393/11c07ba7-2f57-4339-9b07-7a9a6b113ab9.jpg/r0_256_5000_3078_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A vote on whether Labor's controversial Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024 passes into law is expected as early as Monday after a motion to hold a Senate inquiry into the legislation failed.
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Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie moved a motion on Thursday for the bill to be immediately referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for an inquiry and report by November 25 this year.
However, 33 Senators voted against a probe while 31 voted for it to be held. See the table below to find out how individual Senators voted.
Senators exchanged barbs during the vote, with shouts of "shame" and "East Coast Labor doesn't care" about farmers, "dirty deals" with the Greens and "bring on the election" audible across the chamber.
Several Independents voted to hold an inquiry.
However, former Jacqui Lambie Network and now Independent Tammy Tyrell, who worked as a "farm and general labourer" from 1998 to 2005, held a crucial vote and did not support the motion.
Prior to the vote it was touch-and-go whether an inquiry would proceed given that the Greens were holding the balance of power and its leader in the Senate, Mehreen Faruqi, wants the phase-out fast-tracked to 2026.
The Senate was the last remaining barrier to the legislation becoming law after it passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The failure to secure the numbers was a devastating blow for industry stakeholders who held out hope that the committee would have forensically dismantled Labor's plan to phaseout the trade by May 1, 2028.
The agri-political lobbying of the crossbench had intensified over recent weeks and particularly after a parliamentary advisory report into the proposed laws released last Friday recommended they be passed to "absolutely" end the trade by May 1, 2028.
The game plan was recently employed more successfully by the farm lobby to raise awareness of issues that led to the blocking of another of the government's controversial agriculture sector policies in the Biosecurity Protection Levy.
It is understood that a delegation of industry stakeholders and representatives of the Keep the Sheep campaign had planned to head to Canberra next week to meet with Independents and minor parties to argue why a Senate inquiry was required.
There are 76 Australian Senators with the composition being 26 Labor, 31 representing the Coalition, 11 Greens, and minor parties and Independents making up the remaining spots.
Following the unsuccessful motion, Liberal National Party of Queensland Senator Susan McDonald said it was a ""travesty of the democratic process" that an inquiry will not proceed both for those directly impacted and for the agriculture sector to have a sense that the Parliament would "give them a fair go".
"This is incredibly important, it is only when there is faith and trust in our democratic processes that this whole place works," she said.
"It is in the Senate that we have the appropriate place to review the decisions of government.
"It is in the Senate that we have a properly organised process to hear from both sides of the debate. We had a promise, the Agriculture Minister Murray Watt did promise a Senate committee inquiry.
"Instead, the House made some very tokenistic inquiry, it was very dissatisfying for all of those concerned. It is shocking, the sense of despair and betrayal by the people of Western Australia who are involved in the sheep industry.
"But not just those people, it is sheep growers right across Australia who are now affected."
Meanwhile, the Albanese government has come under fire from industry stakeholders since unveiling its industry transition package on May 11 with stakeholders saying the $107 million on offer was not enough.
Mr Watt, who foreshadowed the likelihood of a Senate inquiry into the bill during a recent Senate Estimates hearing, said on Wednesday its passage marked "a considerable step forward for animal welfare" and that the government had delivered on an election commitment to voters.
"The passage of this bill will provide certainty to all stakeholders and enable the roll-out of the programs under the transition support package to begin in the next financial year," he said.
Australian Livestock Exporters' Council chief executive Mark Harvey-Sutton said the government's refusal to hold an inquiry was a "shameful attack" on Western Australian farmers, truckies and the regional towns that support them.
"Today was a galling display of arrogance from this government. It was typical of the political dealings the Government indulges in, that instead of supporting farmers and hard-working Western Australians, they are discarding them for inner city votes and cutting deals with crossbenchers," he said.
"The motion was very nearly supported. We thank those members of the crossbench, including Senators Pocock, Lambie, Roberts, Babet and Van who stood for scrutiny of the Bill today by voting for an inquiry.
Nationals leader David Littleproud last week made a clarion call for a "convoy to Canberra" that would take grassroots protests against Labor's live sheep by sea ban in Western Australia on the road to the seat of federal government power.
Meanwhile, the live cattle by sea industry might be "very, very nervous", according to a former deputy Prime Minister, while participants in the greyhound racing industry should also start looking over their shoulders.
Senator McDonald also said that Labor attempting to force the live sheep supply chain into the processed meat sector demonstrated a "deep lack of understanding" of the industry.
She added that beef producers are now "terrified" and "absolutely do not believe" promises that the live cattle trade is safe.
![The Noes have it. How Senators voted in the motion as to whether an inquiry should be held into the live sheep by sea ban. The Noes have it. How Senators voted in the motion as to whether an inquiry should be held into the live sheep by sea ban.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/230597393/10fadde6-52f8-49e3-b21f-ae621d9a9f9e.png/r0_0_768_801_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)