Summary

Australia’s live export industry plays an important role in the nation’s agricultural economy, connects Australian producers with overseas markets, and underpins relationships that extend well beyond the sale of livestock. At the same time, the industry remains one of the most closely scrutinised areas of Australia’s agricultural sector.

A series of surveys began in 2019 to track how Australians understand, trust, and accept the live export industry. Each survey has explored public sentiment on issues such as animal welfare, regulation, governance, industry responsiveness, and the industry’s economic and social impact. Together, this dataset provide one of the most comprehensive and consistent views of community attitudes toward live export in Australia.

This report outlines the findings of the 2025 survey and examines how community views have changed over time and what conditions strengthen or weaken trust in the industry.

This project is managed by the Livestock Export RD&E Program, a collaboration between LiveCorp and Meat & Livestock Australia.

Objectives

To gather credible data and report on Australian community attitudes toward livestock exports, including the drivers of trust and acceptance, through nationally representative surveys of more than 4,000 Australians.

Key findings

• The average level of trust was 2.99 (out of 5) and acceptance was 3.14. There has been a statistically significant improvement in both measures since the 2019 baseline.

• The key drivers of trust were regulation, animal welfare and industry responsiveness. Trust was the strongest driver of acceptance; however, there were two negative drivers of acceptance, being a respondent’s moral position on animal export and the treatment of animals during live export.

• Consistent with previous years, around three quarters of respondents felt the benefits outweigh the costs (39%) or are equal (36%). 25% felt that costs outweighed the benefits.

• Agreement that “Australia should stop the export of live animals to overseas markets, regardless of the impacts on Australian farmers” was 26.3% - the lowest ever recorded.

• 80.2% agreed “the live export industry makes an important economic contribution to Australia” (up from 71.6% in 2019).

• 69.8% agreed “the live export industry helps overseas countries ensure their citizens have access to safe sources of meat”.

• 74.3% agreed that “animal welfare is a complex issue within the live export industry”.

• 37% agreed that “conditions for animals on live export ships are not in line with Australian welfare standards” (down from 54% in 2019).

• 60% agreed that “applying Australian animal welfare standards to our animals when sold overseas improves welfare standards in those countries” – the highest recorded level of agreement in the program.

• Several questions asked about “live sheep" exports showed no statistical differences compared with the same questions about “live exports” generally.

Benefits to industry

This project will ensure politicians, livestock exporters and others have a factual basis for understanding what the community thinks about livestock exports, including trends over time, based on a representative survey of Australians.

It also highlights the key issues of concern, providing guidance for industry management practices, research efforts and communication strategies.