Article by Caitlyn Rintoul, courtesy of The West Australian.
25.02.2025
A Coalition senator has labelled a failed $2.3 million social media campaign for the Labor Government’s decision to phase out live sheep exports from WA as a “shocking waste of tax payer money”.
Adverts which were supposed to be targeted at sheep producing regions of WA mostly appeared in social media feeds in Victoria and New South Wales.
The Nationals senator Matthew Canavan slammed agriculture department officials in Senate Estimates on Tuesday, who seemingly didn’t realise the advert’s audience demographic data was publicly available.
“Clearly Minister, someone has dropped the ball. There’s not even any analysis done. This is clearly not in the best interest of Australian taxpayers,” Mr Canavan said.
“This money is being spent in parts of the country where the assistance packages are not going to be of any worth — I mean, we may as well be advertising in Tuvalu.”
Almost half of views for the phase out Facebook ad — which had over one million impressions — were in New South Wales, 19 per cent in Victoria and just 16 per cent in WA.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud accused Labor of using the ads in Melbourne and Sydney seats to “appease the animal activists” and prove that it was fulfilling its election commitment to phase out live sheep exports.
Mr Littleproud said nothing had been spent on advertising to inform WA farmers about the co-design process, which would have given farmers a chance to voice their concerns.
The announcement in May 2024 by then-Ag Minister Murray Watt that the Federal Government would phase out live sheep exports by 2028 had angered many WA producers.
Mr Canavan said it would be “worthwhile” to review social media strategy and target the adverts before the campaign ends on February 28.
“You said earlier that a majority of the spend had been in WA but clearly on social media — a majority is not,” he said.
Labor’s assistant Agriculture Minister Anthony Chisholm said the social media campaign was just one element of a broader consultant package with industry around the export ban in 2028.
“I will point out that the social media spend was a very small component. And what you have identified here was a very small component of the small component,” Mr Chisholm responded.
Schooling department officials on how to access the audience demographic data, Mr Canavan even offered to “send a link” to the assistant minister.
The are no department plans to extend the advertising campaign.
The sector also expressed frustrations at the Government’s initial $107 million transition support package to help the industry wean off the industry.
When Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins took on the portfolio in July, she committed an additional $32.7 million to help cushion sheep farmers from the decision.
The advertising bungle came after estimates committee heard foundational work around Labor’s phase out decision was outsourced to a string of east coast consultancy firms.
New figures released in the session on Tuesday showed interstate consulting firms were engaged in supporting the live sheep phase out panel and cataloguing submissions.
Canberra-based consultancy 1 and One, who was paid $89,000 for its role, was among firms listed but others received figures to the tune of $123,000.
