QLD Nationals Senator, Barnaby Joyce says everything he predicted when the Federal government started buckling to the demands of animal rights groups after the ABC Four Corners program aired on June 6, has come to fruition about the serious consequences of disengaging with the Indonesian market, by suspending the live export trade.
?It has had major ramifications on diplomatic relations with Indonesia and economic and social dislocation in northern Australia,? he said.
?Kevin Rudd (Foreign Affairs Minister) has been everywhere else but where we need him.
?He should be in Indonesia right now but he?s not; he?s fluffing around.
?If he was the second ambassador for flower arrangements he?d be there now spruiking Australia?s views but on the live cattle game we don?t see him for dust.
?We have to get the trade up and running immediately or the Indonesians will start sourcing their cattle from somewhere else.?
Senator Joyce said he blamed the government?s close alliance with the Greens for making the wrong response and suspending trade, after initially closing trade to 12 abattoirs identified in the footage.
He said the level of moral outrage expressed on the issue was justified.
But he slammed the ?outrageous? use of that community sentiment to attain the Greens? ?purpose?, to end the trade completely.
?It was a blatant case of complete policy over-reach to achieve your policy purpose; not to fix animal husbandry in Indonesia but to shut down that trade,? he said.
?That?s what they always wanted.
?If you want to test me on that, note how long they had the footage for?
?We know they definitely had it for two months, but understand they were in discussions on this from reports, from January.
?They were happy with the brutalisation of cattle to continue for so long until they had maximum media effect, then they came out weeping and gnashing teeth but they were completely complicit with allowing those practices to go on, to the point in time, until they got maximum bang for their media buck.
Senator Joyce said Indonesia?s animal husbandry techniques and practices would not change, when they allow cattle imports from Uruguay, Brazil and the Islamic States of India, to cover the loss of Australia?s trade.
?They will be just the same,? he said.
He also slammed other aspects of the disengagement.
?Will Australia have any effect on improving animal husbandry techniques now?? he said.
?No they won?t. Will we have needlessly closed down abattoirs using slaughtering techniques that are actually compliant with world standards owned and operated by Australian companies? ?Yes we will have.
?Will we have decimated northern Australia?
?Yes we will have.
?Will we have taken the social and economic progression of Indigenous people back years?
?Yes we will have.
?Will we have stranded Transport Worker Union members and truck owners and operators?
?Yes we will have.
?Will we have completely put at financial risk those who own the boats that export our cattle?
?Yes we will have.
?Will we have completely and utterly infuriated our nearest and most important neighbour, Indonesia?
?Yes we will have.
?Will the Greens have shown the enormous power they now have in this nation?
?Yes they have.
?And Rudd?s missing and Gillard is not engaged with it.
?If I had 250 million people on my doorstep I?d be paying vastly more attention than what they are paying.
?It?s a domestic issue, it has turned into a foreign policy issues, and we are completely and utterly at sea.
?We are doing immense damage to ourselves and nothing to improve overall animal husbandry practices because they can just go around us and get their cattle from somewhere else.
?This is doing immense damage political and trade relations with a vitally important and strategic ally.?
Outgoing Tasmania Labor Senator, Kerry O?Brien, said Australia?s trade relationship with Indonesia had logistical advantages and should be able to withstand the pressure from suspending the live export trade.
?I?d be surprised if it has an impact on trade, given the volume of wheat taken by Indonesia, and bear in mind it?s a short trip for the product and the market is logistically convenient for us and in terms of cost for them,? he said.
?I won?t be surprised by what?s said but we do actually have a good and strong trade relationship with Indonesia and we can probably work it through.
?The difficulty may be that the cattle trade may not resume quickly.?
Senator O?Brien said the deregulation of the Indonesian meat processing sector had meant that the smaller slaughter facilities and independent butchers had taken a large percentage of the market, which the high quality slaughter houses previously had.
?A facility in Jakarta with the capacity to process 2000 cattle a day is operating at 10 percent capacity and two larger facilities have been built but not opened because of pressure from the small processing sector,? he said.
?So with all this going on and LiveCorp having someone based in Jakarta since May last year, Meat and Livestock Australia have been unable to deal with the problem.
?They?ve known this was a hand grenade ready to explode but hoped it would not be revealed because trade was so important.
?More needed to be done but processes were vulnerable and as I said in the election debate in 2007, if the animal welfare issues in the live export sector are not properly dealt with, the Australian public will demand a government of any persuasion to shut it down.?
Senator O?Brien, the former Shadow Agriculture Minister from 2006 to 2007, said previous examples of animal cruelty practices being exposed in Australia?s live export markets, such as Egypt in 2006, meant the industry understood the sort of pressures it can come under and other markets have been shut for years.
?Knowing the importance of the Indonesian market, how could they just leave it and hope the wheels don?t fall off?? he said.
?LiveCorp represents the businesses that do the exports and MLA represents the producers.
?If there?s a break down in communication, MLA has a duty of care to producers, they have a duty of care and they have not done that.
?Whatever finger needed to be pointed at trade officials who may or may not have known what was going on; I don?t know.
?But the finger has to be pointed at those organisations, and say, ?this happened on your watch - you tell us why you didn?t know? and it was completely knowable.
?In terms of LiveCorp I don?t think there?s any credible reason why they wouldn?t know.?
Senator O?Brien said the Foreign Minister needed to be more involved than just making phone calls.
?I don?t think it?s a big call for him to go over there if it would help,? he said
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