Urgent: Imminent Heatwave, Legal Failures, and the Ongoing Suffering of Victorian Sheep

Dear Victorian Parliamentarians,

I am writing to you on the eve of Victoria’s first extreme heatwave.

An extreme weather warning has been issued for large parts of the state. While many Victorians will seek shelter indoors, millions of sheep across Victoria will remain in open paddocks, enduring extreme heat with little to no protection.

This suffering is not incidental - it is legal.

If you are unfamiliar with Sheep Advocate Australia, we are an organisation that exposes failures within the animal-welfare system and lodges cruelty complaints against the Victorian sheep industry. In 2025 alone, our small volunteer team averaged one cruelty complaint every week. With adequate resources, time, and funding, we could lodge a cruelty complaint every day. During summer, the majority of our complaints relate directly to heat stress, lack of shelter, starvation, flystrike, parasitic burdens, and animals left in barren, empty paddocks.

We consistently document sheep suffering from scouring caused by worm burdens, which attracts blowflies and leads to severe flystrike. We see starvation, dehydration, wool blindness, untreated injuries, and prolonged neglect. All of this suffering is occurring within what is currently considered lawful practice. The Victorian Government is aware of this.

Sheep Advocate Australia has been writing to the Premier and the Minister for Agriculture for almost four years. The Minister is well aware of the deficiencies we have repeatedly highlighted: the gaps in the Codes of Practice, the absence of enforceable protections, and Agriculture Victoria’s failure to meaningfully amend, enforce, or uphold the Welfare Act in a way that compels producers to meet even the most basic standards of care.

The current Code of Practice is not legally binding. It is a suggestive document - a guidebook at best - that outlines what might be considered ideal farming behaviors. It lacks substance, enforceability, and coverage of critical welfare needs. The most glaring omission, and the focus of this letter, is the absence of enforceable requirements for shade and shelter.

While the Welfare Act states that animals must be protected from extreme weather, this obligation is undermined by the Code of Practice and the National Standards that inform it. These standards absurdly suggest that tall grass or hills may constitute adequate shelter. Any rational observer understands that tall grass and hills offer no protection on a 40-degree day - particularly when many paddocks are dry, flat, and completely exposed.

As a result, millions of sheep are legally left in barren paddocks during extreme heat events, and no one is held accountable. This is not accidental; it is enabled by deliberately weak and contradictory welfare frameworks that originate at the national level and are perpetuated by state inaction.

Victoria is the powerhouse of the Australian sheep industry. It slaughters millions of lambs each year and has recorded some of the highest profits and kill numbers on record. Yet animal welfare protections have scarcely evolved in Australia’s history. While production intensifies, welfare standards remain stagnant. Political fear and a refusal to take a progressive stance have paralysed meaningful reform.

As you sit in air-conditioned offices and homes, we ask you to spare a thought for the sheep who will suffer and die tomorrow in extreme heat. Sheep lack the facial musculature humans associate with expressions of pain, which has led to the dangerous myth that they do not suffer. They do. Many will die without relief, without choice, and without protection. Their suffering has been normalised and sanctioned through policy.

Victoria continues to delay the introduction of the Care and Protections Bill. This failure of leadership has stalled progress toward a modern Welfare Act and delayed the drafting of improved National Standards. As the leading sheep-producing state, Victoria should be driving urgent reform, not obstructing it.

We have identified numerous failures within existing welfare frameworks, including the unchecked rollout of modern machinery - shearing, dipping, and handling systems - introduced without adequate oversight, testing, or welfare safeguards. Speed, scale, and profit are prioritised over animal wellbeing.

This is an election year. Once again, we are cycling through predictable periods of industry harm: summer heat stress and starvation, followed by winter birthing losses, where thousands of lambs suffer and die. Lambs, disturbingly, have virtually no legal protections at all. Australia now routinely slaughters lambs as young as six months of age, shortly after weaning.

Victoria has refused to introduce modern welfare standards. The Care and Protections Bill remains stalled. National Standards are ready to be amended but are effectively being held hostage by Victoria and New South Wales - two states that should be leading reform, not delaying it.

Protection from extreme weather is a basic need. That is why we are contacting you today. We ask that sheep be placed firmly on your agenda and within your sphere of care. What is currently considered acceptable is not merely inadequate - it is barbaric.

Water and food are not meaningfully mandated. Weak Codes of Practice create escape clauses that render the Welfare Act’s “must” provisions meaningless. This framework is fraudulent and manipulative by design.

We will continue to provide information throughout 2026. We anticipate that an inquiry into the Victorian sheep industry will become an unavoidable issue by 2027. An inquiry is urgently needed. Its findings would improve animal welfare, strengthen farming practices, and protect Australia’s international reputation - an asset that is already deteriorating.

The wool industry’s decline is a clear warning. Australia has lost its dominant position to countries such as South Africa. Despite this, approximately 54–56% of Merino producers continue to practise mulesing. Enormous public funds are being invested in mitigation strategies - fly control, methane-reducing feed trials, low-emissions sheep - while avoiding the core issue: the scale of the industry itself.

Rather than reducing sheep numbers, governments continue expanding production, exporting suffering along with meat and wool. The environmental and ethical costs are mounting.

Victoria proudly promotes its agricultural industries yet repeatedly signals that animal welfare is expendable. Sheep Advocate Australia is here to make it clear: animal welfare is not optional. It is fundamental - to ethics, to sustainability, and to public trust.

We will continue to shine a light on the suffering of sheep. Animal welfare is one of the most important election issues of our time. Governments may hope the public does not care - but they are wrong. Millions of Australians are beginning to pay attention. Many of our strongest supporters come from within the industry itself, because they know how bad conditions truly are.

Political fear must not continue to override moral responsibility.

Yours sincerely,

Gary Hall

Founder - Sheep Advocate Australia