A (Not So) Free Trade Deal for Regional WA - Why the Australia-EU Trade Agreement Misses the Mark

MR RICK WILSON MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR O’CONNOR

30th March 2026

A (Not So) Free Trade Deal for Regional WA – Why the Australia-EU Trade Agreement Misses the Mark

Across my electorate of O’Connor, this time of year is about watching the skies, lining up supplies of fertiliser and fuel, and making decisions that will determine whether the season gets off on the right foot.

It’s also a time when farmers expect governments to back regional industries, not make their jobs harder.

That’s why the newly finalised Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement has landed so poorly across our part of the world, being roundly condemned by peak agricultural bodies around the country.

For WA producers - particularly sheep, beef and mixed‑enterprise farmers - the deal offers little in the way of real, bankable opportunity.

Despite Mr Albanese’s fanfare, it is hard to see where the tangible benefits lie for the regions that do most of the growing, breeding and exporting.

The Wheatbelt and Great Southern are the heartland of WA’s sheep industry.

Farming communities across my electorate are already absorbing the consequences of this Government’s nonsensical live sheep export ban, which removed a market for over half a million sheep each year.

Those sheep now need to be processed domestically and exported as boxed product into global markets, while our abattoirs are struggling with viability, labour shortages and throughput pressures.

Against that backdrop, meaningful access to a premium chilled lamb market like the EU was critical. But the federal Labor Government has failed the sheep producers of Western Australia yet again!

Instead, the agreement caps Australian sheepmeat access at just over 30,000 tonnes (carcase weight equivalent), phased in slowly over seven years.

Industry bodies have been clear: that volume is well short of what is needed to make exporting commercially worthwhile.

For sheep producers from Katanning to Kojonup, Narrogin to Newdegate, this is not the reset that was needed.

Cattle producers are facing similar disappointment.

Under the deal, Australian beef exports to the EU will be limited to a 35,000‑tonne quota, phased in over ten years, with no pathway to unlimited access.

And our producers face quotas significantly lower than granted to other countries in comparable EU deals, like the 50,000 tonnes granted to Canada, and 99,000 tonnes to Mercosur countries

WA beef producers are being asked to compete in the same market on markedly worse terms.

For family operations running mixed grain-grazing systems, that’s not a small detail - it’s the difference between an opportunity and a dead end.

While access into Europe remains tightly controlled, Australian markets are being opened further to subsidised European imports.

European dairy farmers operate under subsidy frameworks of around 30 per cent, yet Australian tariffs designed to offset that distortion are being removed.

The result is more pressure on local processors and producers trying to survive without subsidies, in high‑cost, high‑compliance environments.

For regional communities that depend on local processing jobs and supply chains, this imbalance matters.

Grain growers across the Wheatbelt might be told that tariffs on wheat are technically removed, but in practice, existing non‑tariff barriers, standards, and logistics constraints mean there is little change on the ground.

For the many WA farms that rely on mixed systems - cropping to generate cash flow, livestock to manage risks - the weakness of the sheep and beef outcomes undermines the whole business model.

When one leg of the enterprise is kicked out, the whole operation wobbles!

Perhaps what frustrates regional communities most is the sense that agriculture was traded away to get the deal over the line.

Negotiations were previously scrapped because the terms were unacceptable for Australian farmers.

What has changed since then for WA producers? Very little.

This feels more like a deal driven by diplomatic deadlines.

Our WA farmers are not opposed to trade- quite the opposite. Our regions depend on it.

But trade agreements must deliver commercially meaningful access, not symbolic quotas that look good in press releases and fall apart in practice.

For WA sheep and cattle producers already dealing with seasonal risk, market upheaval and rising costs, this agreement fails the basic test: does it make it easier to do business?

Right now, the answer for much of regional WA is no.

If this Labor Government wants regional WA to keep producing, exporting and employing, future trade deals must be built around genuine access, fair competition and respect for the industries that earn the nation its export income...not just deals that look good from Canberra.

Media contact:
Reuben Keyser
Communications and Community Engagement Adviser
[email protected] 
(08) 9842 2777
0455 125 035