Livexchange 2022: Effective use of social media debated in Darwin

Whether the mechanisms are in place to put that into practice is another thing, at least as far as panelists at the LIVEXchange conference in Darwin were concerned.

At the conference hailed as a strong show of support for an industry that was on its knees 11 years ago, 400 registered delegates heard young heli-musterer Donal Sullivan ask whose job it was to engage with stakeholders in the live export sphere, and with the general public.

She was one of a panel convened by Tracey Hayes, CEO of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association at the time the suspension of the came into place, looking at what had been learnt from the ban over a decade ago.

Ms Hayes quoted a few telling statistics - 1.6 million followers for Animals Australia on Facebook versus 40,000 for the Meat & Livestock Association and 18,000 for the National Farmers' Federation, or 1.4m people following PETA on Instagram whereas 2000 people are following the Cattle Council.

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Ms Sullivan, whose father Rohan Sullivan was the president of the NTCA at the time the Four Corners program detailing poor treatment of cattle in the trade was aired, has 5500 followers on Instagram and as Ms Hayes said, could be seen as a social media influencer.

"Given you have more followers than our national body on that platform, are we doing enough," Ms Hayes asked.

Pointing out that making use of social media required strategy, Ms Sullivan also said it needed more than posting a few photos occasionally.

"Social media requires consideration, it's not just a shoot from the hip," she said. "There's definitely a lot of room for us to grow in that area."

She showed how uncertain the arena still was, asking whether it was the role of producers or representative bodies to talk to the Australian public.

"If we don't organise for someone to be in control, someone will tell that story for us," she said. "I can guarantee, if you search for live export, the algorithm is going to bring up animal welfare and animal rights issues."

Other panelists included feedlot consultant Greg Pankhurst and former MLA manager Peter Barnard, and the latter said social media worked best when it came from the coalface rather than from industry groups.

"Social media relies on social connections," he said.

Mr Pankhurst's statistics on the importance of the Indonesian live export trade - 25 feedlots importing a million cattle a year, or the equivalent of enough meat for 100 million people, 20,000 people directly out of work if live export was banned - could have been a series of social media posts in themselves.

Current concerns that the Albanese government will close down the live sheep export trade meant that the relevance of this issue was still very high.

"People are asking, would a sheep shutdown be based on ideology and so would it only be a matter of time before people come gunning for it," Ms Hayes said.

Dr Barnard said one of the most important lessons from 2011 was that never again should Australia precipitously and arbitrarily shut down a food trade.

"It's hard to imagine from an Australian point of view what it is to be reliant on food imports," he said.

"For us to act in a way to shut down such a trade - it's reputationally damaging to Australia, and it's regulation designed to harm - our producers in Australia and our customers overseas.

"I just hope that the Australian government has learnt from those issues and never again acts the same way, and that applies to the sheep trade to the Middle East.

"Set the standards for the trade by all means; that's appropriate but don't shut the trade down."

All panellists agreed that positive relationships at every level were very important.

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