The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the case against Western Australian live export company Emanuel Exports over the deaths of 2400 sheep from heat stress on a voyage to the Middle East five years ago is to be dropped just days before it was due to go to trial. Apparently its just not a good use of taxpayer money.

Jed Goodfellow from the Australian Alliance for Animals was quoted as saying: “Is the government saying it is too expensive to uphold the law when it comes to animal cruelty? ... It’s essentially saying that if a defendant has deep pockets, they’ll get a free pass on alleged breaches of the law ... It simply doesn’t add up."

Of course it doesn't add up. It's live export. Live exporters are just businessmen and animals are just commodities.

Australian Standards: world's best? Sure – but this shows that they are absolutely and totally unenforceable.

The link between bottomed out sheep prices and the federal government’s plans to phase out live sheep exports by sea has been quashed by the nation’s top ag research bureau.
 
According to The Weekly Times,  ABARES executive director Jared Greenville said the falling prices were more directly attributable to market oversupply following restocking over recent good seasons, rather than industry claims it was due to a looming ban on the trade. He was quoted as saying “That is not the case, there is clearly underlying drivers in this market that we’re seeing in the east, not just in the west (where the majority of Australia’s live sheep exports by sea farmers are based),” he said.

Mecardo market analyst Angus Brown backed up Dr Greenville’s comments
and Elders national livestock manager Peter Homann said sheep prices in Western Australia were currently better than in the east, so the prices were not linked to the phasing out of live sheep exports though it was another factor to be concerned about.

Maybe the WA farmers hopping up and down in the media are distorting the current market situation to their own advantage...again. 

Labor has paid $319k to a private company, Episode 3, to advise on the phase-out of live sheep exports. This is a company whose own directors have publicly campaigned to oppose the phase-out. It is also a company whose economic reports into the live export trade have not stood up to independent academic analysis and scrutiny.
This isnt a case of listening to a variety of views as was suggested in the Senate. This was supposedly paid economic expert advice. The independent panel was put there to be independent but they will likely base their decisions on the extremely expensive taxpayer funder advice (it so does pay to be pro live export!) from this exporter based and biased company.

See Senate Estimates: https://www.facebook.com/mehreenfaruqi/videos/1558836791597076/?mibextid=zDhOQc