As a little girl growing up in Canberra and attending Pearce Primary School, all Lynne Simpson ever wanted was to be a veterinarian.
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Little did she know what a tumultuous journey that career dream would take her on, starting with a part-time job as the contracted veterinarian on the filthy live sheep export ships to becoming the key whistleblower exposing the animal cruelty of that trade.
"It has been a rollercoaster journey," Dr Simpson admitted, the day after a marathon 12-hour Senate debate passed national legislation ending the live sheep export trade by 2028.
She sat in the gallery to see through a 20-year campaign which has cost her dearly; she can no longer practice as a veterinarian because of post-traumatic stress and elbow injuries which affect her fine motor skills.
![The passing of legislation to wind up the live sheep trade marks the end to a long campaign by Canberra whistleblower Dr Lynne Simpson. Picture by Keegan Carroll The passing of legislation to wind up the live sheep trade marks the end to a long campaign by Canberra whistleblower Dr Lynne Simpson. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/5d513841-5b33-4c05-95e5-cd16d991c8eb.jpg/r0_444_5000_3266_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
But she remains phlegmatic and surprisingly good-humoured about the price she has paid physically, mentally and emotionally, despite the death threats and hostility which dogged her through the years as she resolutely worked to expose the industry's animal welfare issues.
The daughter of a Scottish scientist who came to Canberra to work at the NASA deep space tracking station, Dr Simpson's career goal took her across to study for her veterinary degree in Western Australia, where she was offered work loading sheep onto the ships out of Fremantle.
![Sheep covered in faeces and crammed on board a live export ship to the Middle East. Picture supplied Sheep covered in faeces and crammed on board a live export ship to the Middle East. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/1f026505-c416-4bde-8687-7789a3802770.jpg/r0_0_1920_1079_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"I'd never heard of the live sheep trade when I was here [in Canberra]," she said.
"So in my final years of my degree while everyone else was flipping burgers at Maccas, I was a stevedore unloading trucks in Freo, as a chick from Canberra does."
After graduating, she was asked by an exporter if she wanted to join a ship's voyage to the Middle East as the mandatory on-board vet.
"I thought I would do one voyage from go to whoa and then go off and be a real vet," she said.
![Dr Lynne Simpson was the on-board veterinarian on 57 live sheep voyages. Picture by Keegan Carroll Dr Lynne Simpson was the on-board veterinarian on 57 live sheep voyages. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/efe9ad87-21d0-40f5-a98b-4fee14be421c.jpg/r0_300_5000_3122_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"But after seeing that process and starting a veterinary practice on land, I realised my pragmatism and experience in industrial work would benefit a lot more animals out on those ships than if I just stayed [on land] in a practice."
She ended up doing 57 voyages on the floating feedlots, most ships double-stacked 16-tiers high with tens of thousands of sheep, between 2001-2011 on routes to the Middle East, Russia, Libya, Turkey and Madagascar.
![A graphic photo of conditions on board a live sheep trade vessel. Picture supplied A graphic photo of conditions on board a live sheep trade vessel. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/30adba19-ad2d-455f-8435-e5ddad9700e0.jpg/r0_0_2560_1439_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
As temperatures in the Persian Gulf soared to 52 degrees celsius with 85 per cent humidity, hundreds of animals would die of starvation, heat stress and disease. Low ventilation meant the excrement off-gassed the constant stink of ammonia. Conditions below the ships' waterline, she said, were "simply awful".
Packed tightly into pens, any virus or disease spread quickly. The dead sheep would be dragged out each day and thrown overboard.
"Every day you have to do an on-board report and from the very first day I was reporting back very hot conditions, respiratory rates above normal [in the animals] resulting in disease and heat stress," she said.
"When you see photos from on board of what looks like animals covered in mud, that's not mud; it's faeces."
When she would return home to Canberra, she would phone the Department of Agriculture and send emails describing what she had witnessed, including the Saudi stevedores' wharfside clubbing of the sheep with sticks imbedded with nails.
"The reports back to Australia had to be bland because otherwise you would never get a job again. But the follow-up back here [in Canberra] was where you had a chance to make a difference; I don't know of anyone else who did that," she said.
![Loading the sheep for export. Picture by Karleen Minney Loading the sheep for export. Picture by Karleen Minney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/8ef3d739-8aca-45e8-afb2-77969c0f2de6.JPG/r0_164_3504_2142_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The ABC's watershed expose A Bloody Business in 2011, which highlighted the cruelty to cattle exported from Australia to slaughter houses in Indonesia, also triggered a closer study of the sheep trade to the Middle East.
Dr Simpson was appointed the following year to be the subject matter expert to advise an inquiry into the rewriting of live export standards. She reluctantly agreed and at the behest of her departmental head, provided a comprehensive, factual 44-page submission.
But when her submission went public, pressure on the department from the livestock industry, which accused her of siding with animal welfare, effectively forced her out. A formal letter at the time from the first assistant secretary of the Department of Fisheries, Agriculture and Forestry, Karen Schneider, confirmed it.
"I'd always adopted the approach to be the most reasonable person in the room, so to be bullied out by industry really irked me," she said.
Undaunted, Dr Simpson was happy to tell anyone her side of the story. Despite the phone calls and threats, she kept up the pressure on multiple fronts, including writing a regular column and podcasts for the shipping industry, which she says "had long held the view that this industry was on the nose".
With the passing of the legislation and fulfilment of a 2022 Labor election pledge, the live sheep trade out of Fremantle will end in 2028. A $107 million support package has been approved to assist the transition.
For Dr Simpson, a long campaign has come to an end and she will return to her home in Ulverstone, Tasmania, to spend more time with her two dogs and to ride her horse.
![The live sheep export trade will wind up in 2028. Picture by Karleen Minney The live sheep export trade will wind up in 2028. Picture by Karleen Minney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ZBtA3uhzm786CWHKXPpjK4/f55b3f4c-5bfe-40e4-a244-1f73016ac6b2.JPG/r0_0_3504_1978_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
She says the end to the trade couldn't have been achieved without the collective focus of many groups, like the RSPCA, the Australian Alliance for Animals, Australian Veterinary Association and many others who "put their differences aside for a common goal".