LIVE exports champion and WA Liberal Senator Chris Back could potentially lose his position in federal parliament at the upcoming double dissolution election due to a flaw in the party’s constitution.
Since starting in 2009, Senator Back has advocated strongly for the live animal export trade that’s been under sustained fire in recent years from animal rights groups and also sought measures to resolve critical agricultural education and labour supply shortages.
However, he could be left in the susceptible sixth spot on the WA Liberals Senate ticket due to the party’s lack of constitutional process for choosing the pre-selected order of candidates at a rare double dissolution poll.
It’s understood a Liberal Senate ticket will be put to party’s the 36 member Executive Committee for consideration tonight with the pecking order supposedly chosen based on party seniority.
Current Ministers Mathias Cormann and Michaelia Cash sit in first and second place respectively, with Senator Dean Smith in third position.
The top three WA Liberal Senators would be clearly re-elected at the July 2 poll and under the double dissolution arrangements would have six year terms.
Veteran David Johnson has been named in fourth position ahead of Senator Linda Reynolds and Senator Back who would all take three years terms if successfully re-elected.
But Senator Back’s shock at discovering he’d been put in the vulnerable sixth position on that preliminary list is understood to have ignited a strong campaign to try and claim Senator Smith’s third spot.
It’s understood the pre-selection process has been unsettled by Senator Johnson’s decision to continue his career - after starting in 2002 - believing he could reclaim a cabinet minister’s position in future or be elected Senate President.
A committee of four senior party figures including WA Liberal President Norman Moore have been asked to recommend the Senate ticket order, to the party’s Executive.
But that move has upset members who want the pre-selection order ultimately addressed by the Liberal State Council for final ratification at a meeting, potentially this weekend.
At the Council’s most recent pre-selection meeting, Senator Back was chosen in third place on the Liberal’s ticket for a normal half-senate election behind Senator Cormann and Senator Smith.
The other half of the party’s ticket saw Senator Johnson pre-selected at one, Senator Cash at two and Senator Reynolds at three.
However, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has all but confirmed a double dissolution election for July 2 with a trigger process set to put in place within days, after this week’s budget, and all 12 WA Senate positions up for grabs
The unique election strategy has caused heartache for other agricultural focussed Coalition Senators with former Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture and current cabinet minister Richard Colbeck slipping down to fifth on the Tasmanian Liberal ticket.
SA Liberal Senator Sean Edwards has also been highly active in advocating rural and agricultural issues since starting in 2011 but has been named in the vulnerable fifth position.
Senator Colbeck was pre-selected behind three sitting Tasmanian Liberal Senators – with Eric Abetz in first place - and a non-member of parliament.
Senator Back is currently a duty Senator for the sparse rural seat of O’Connor held by Liberal MP Rick Wilson while Senator Smith provides backing for Liberal MP Melissa Price in Durack which also covers mining and pastoral areas.
Senator Back has been a prominent figure on the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport Committee especially during the Indonesian live exports crisis of 2011 and since, in promoting scientific and evidence based policy reasoning on animal welfare.
He raised concerns about the authenticity of animal cruelty video footage aired on ABC television at the time and subversive political tactics used by animal rights activists to engineer the shock political ban on cattle trade to Indonesia which caused severe economic damage domestically and upset diplomatic ties with Jakarta.
His experience as a veterinarian has also sharpened the Committee’s capacity to assess biosecurity threats related to animal health and sharpen the parliament’s understanding of non-tariff trade barriers.
He is also a former teacher at the Muresk Institute of Agriculture in the WA Wheatbelt and has also used his experience as a former CEO of the Bush Fires Service of WA to highlight and address emergency response issues.
While Liberal sources are debating the merits of Senator Smith and Senator Back as regional members, farm stakeholders would view the loss of both Liberal Senators as potentially negative outcome.
Senator Smith has not been as visible on live exports, agricultural education or biosecurity as his rival - but has championed other agriculture policy priorities like wheat exports deregulation, crop biotechnology, farmer choice and pastoral land rights.
He has strongly defended property rights for cattle stations in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne-Murchison and Goldfields regions of WA and displayed sharp commercial acumen in assessing agricultural matters.
One senior party source said if former WA National Party leader Brendon Gryll’s had of chosen to run for the federal Senate and leave the WA Parliament, it would have forced the WA Liberals to look closer at its regional representation credentials, in deciding the Senate ticket’s order of priority.
“We’ve been blessed by Brendon Grylls not running at this election which has given the WA Liberal party a reprieve,” the source said.
“But the Dean Smith and Chris Back style of representation in the bush would serve the party well with Dean breaking ground in non-traditional policy areas and Chris maintaining a focus on our traditional territory.
“If Chris Back plays his cards right, Johnson could be the loser.
“But Malcolm Turnbull’s double dissolution strategy has seen good regional members of the federal parliament placed down the Senate ticket and into vulnerable positions, as a result of State divisional power-plays.
“This was Malcolm’s big idea.”
A list of recent adjournment speeches in the Senate shows that Senator Smith has made 24 with 16 of them having a regional focus.
That includes supporting the removal of prohibitive WA State legislation that would potentially ban GM crops like canola, by an incoming Labor government, despite proven scientific evidence of safety and farmers embracing the technology.
Senator Back has made 16 speeches with six of them having a regional focus while Senator Reynolds has made 11 with only one covering rural issues.
In another blow for agricultural representation, experienced NSW Liberal Senator and livestock and grain farm Bill Heffernan is set to retire at the upcoming election.
Former Shadow Agriculture Minister John Cobb is also set to step down along with Warren Truss - a former Agriculture Minister and Nationals leader –and other rural members like experienced Victorian Liberal MP Sharman Stone and Queensland LNP MPs Bruce Scott and Ian Macfarlane.
During a Senate speech in 2014 highlighting that 99.85 per cent of Australian cattle arrived safely out of about 442,000 exported from July to December 2013, Senator Back declared he probably should have declared, not a conflict of interest but a convergence of interest in the live export industry.
He said he’d been associated with the industry for several years and his elder brother had also taken over his live export practice.
“I have actually been told accusingly by Greens and others that I should declare a conflict of interest,” he said.
“If I did that, he would have to go back to 1846 when my great-great-grandfather, Captain Edward Back, was the master of the first vessel that ever exported live animals —they were cattle—out of the colony of Western Australia through the port of Fremantle.
“They were live cattle going to Batavia, now Jakarta.
“Amazingly enough, the report from the captain's log of the vessel, the Black Swan, was that all stock arrived safe.
“So, if I have a conflict of interest, it goes back to 1846.”