Dr Chris Back was elected Chair of the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council in November 2025.

He graduated from the Veterinary School at Queensland University in 1971, subsequently working in both the government sector and private practice, including as a consultant in the livestock export trade in the 1980s.

Dr Back has been a faculty member, lecturing in animal production and reproduction, at Curtin University in WA, the University of California, Davis and the University of Kentucky. In 1976 he established Australia’s first accreditation course in equine management.

Post veterinary medicine, Dr Back has held positions as CEO of a government trading enterprise and an emergency services department, and as Managing Director of companies trading in the oil and gas industry in Australia, South East Asia and the Middle East.

In 2009, Dr Back became the first veterinarian elected to the Senate of the Australian Parliament, representing Western Australia. During this time he chaired the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. He was closely associated with events surrounding the ban on beef cattle exports to Indonesia and the subsequent reversal of that ban in 2011. He retired from the Senate in 2017.