By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Few things excite the Coalition in opposition better than a folksy rally on the lawns of Parliament House, an opportunity for agricultural cosplay as grumpy battlers grumble about the injustices of life under a Labor government.
So when about 1000 cranky farmers showed up at a rally kicked off by CBD’s new favourite “grassroots” organisation, Keep the Sheep, to vent about the Albanese government’s live sheep export ban and its general treatment of the agriculture sector, Peter Dutton and Co couldn’t be kept away. In fact, much of the joint party room trooped down for the event.
The opposition leader, decked in a Keep the Sheep scarf, had a crack at the prime minister for not showing up, and was joined on stage by Nationals leader David Littleproud, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, and other frontbenchers including Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter also put in appearances because they love this kind of thing.
Things got a little awkward for Littleproud when he was forced to confront a heckler over his water policy in the Murray Darling Basin while Agriculture Minister. Farmers too are a broad church, and don’t they have long memories? And if Ley felt any awkwardness over her previous support for a live export ban, even moving a private members bill to that effect in 2018, well, she didn’t show it. Ancient history, kids.
As for Keep the Sheep, the group is getting plenty of help from the industry at large. Regular readers will recall how we revealed this week the organisation, fronted by charismatic truckie Ben “Benno” Sutherland, put out an email produced using slick political campaign software Nation Builder, while its website is created by the expert digital agency Campaign Surge, founded by former Dutts staffer Peter Hosking.
“Benno” Sutherland and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton at the Keep the Sheep rally in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Now CBD has learnt former Howard government staffer turned ag-sector lobbyist Peter McMahon is bending his arm to the cause. Coincidentally, he lobbies for Emanuel Exports, a prominent WA-based live exporter which had its licence temporarily suspended after 60 Minutes aired gruesome footage of its sheep onboard a ship to the Middle East. A criminal case against the company was dropped last year.
McMahon insisted his involvement was not a story, which for us is a sure-fire way to end up in this column.
Mark Harvey-Sutton, chief executive of industry group Australian Live Exporters’ Council, was more accommodating. “There was a lot of frustration there … [farmers] were ropeable that the prime and agricultural minister didn’t bother to show up.”
As to the future, expect more big rig action coming to a lawn near you, readers. “We very much have the election in mind.”
WORKING THE REFS
After last month’s disastrous failure to lodge council election nominations on time, the NSW Liberals slowly cycled through five stages of grief.
But before reaching acceptance, there was plenty of denial. A week after the party abandoned a hare-brained idea to take the NSW Electoral Commission to court, the party sent a fairly sooky set of supplementary questions on notice to the regulator.
Upper House MP Chris Rath, sending questions on behalf of the party, pointed out that in 2021 the commission had given candidates a heads-up to amend their nomination forms before deadline.
“Why were similar courtesies not afforded in 2024, despite specific written requests for assistance prior to the close of nominations?” they asked.
The Liberals also wanted to know what steps were taken to ensure IT systems used for candidate nominations accurately reflected the status of submissions. And also, whether the commission, whose deadlines all seemed rather transparent to the rest of the world, would be making the nomination process a bit easier next time.
“How does the NSW Electoral Commission plan to streamline the nomination process to reduce its complexity and make it more accessible to all candidates, regardless of their technical proficiency or resource?” he asked – which seems like a dig at the Liberals’ own technical proficiency.
The party was also curious about whether the commission had a review mechanism “to evaluate decisions made by staff that result in the rejection of candidate nominations, particularly when procedural inconsistencies are alleged”.
None of this is going to get any Liberals back on the ballot by Saturday, of course. Answers to those questions aren’t due for another fortnight. Perhaps by then the Liberals might have accepted their fate.
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