A parliamentary petition calling for a ban on mulesing has gained traction, surpassing the 500 signatures needed, and will be tabled in the NSW Legislative Council in the coming months.

The ban has been championed by Animal Justice Party MP Mark Pearson, but farming bodies have defended the practice as the most effective flystrike management technique. 

The campaign reached new media heights after footage of mulesing practices in Australia was shown in British Parliament during Free Trade Agreements. Mr Pearson believes Australian wool imports into the UK should be banned until mulesing is completely phased out. 

“The world is now looking in Australia’s backyard. Our nation must ban this cruelty or be left behind both socially and economically,” Mr Pearson said. 

Western Plains-based lamb marking contractor and wool producer Dave Seis said that the confronting nature of the practice makes it understandably contentious. 

“You’re performing a surgical procedure where there’s blood and basically people don’t like to see that,” Mr Seis said. 

He also attributes the popularity of the petition to people seeing the face of the issue without realising the alternative. 

“They’re seeing the concerning pictures, they’re not seeing the hundreds of sheep that are dying because of being flyblown,” he said.

While the proposed phase out supposedly would allow time for sheep to be bred without the wrinkles that can promote flystrike and maggots, Mr Seis said that that solution would only bring a host of new issues. 

“Without mulesing, there’s going to be a bigger reliance on chemical and mechanical methods used to control flies,” Mr Seis said. 

With the industry already rife with worker shortages, Mr Seis said that any solution that requires more labour - even if only in the short term - might not be viable. 

Ironically, it could also be this issue that leads to the inevitable phasing out of mulesing, ban or not. 

“From an industry point of view, mulesing will die off naturally because there’s no young people passing it on and learning how to do it,” Mr Seis said. 

NSW Farmers has long defended mulesing as the best method to positive welfare outcomes. 

NSW Farmers President James Jackson said in 2019 they support the mandating of using pain relief.

“Our members are concerned by movements in the market to demand non-mulesed wool. This step to support industry driving the mandating of pain relief highlights the need to actively defend the practice,” Mr Jackson said. 

The petition also calls for mandatory pain relief during tail docking, castration and mulesing to take place immediately.