Malaysia is suspending all live cattle imports from Australia
Malaysia has temporarily suspended live cattle and buffalo exports from Australia, becoming the second country to do so after Indonesia. Jakarta halted trade from four Australian exporters after the detection of lumpy skin disease in cattle from Australia.
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TVTranscript
00:00 We understand that yesterday the Australian Government was notified that Malaysia was
00:06 putting a halt on all imports of Australian live cattle and buffalo.
00:10 It's important to note that Malaysia is a small market for Australian live cattle and
00:14 buffalo and predominantly imports actually breeding cattle rather than cattle that are
00:20 then used for slaughter.
00:21 But this is significant.
00:23 Malaysia is following Indonesia's announcement late last month.
00:28 Malaysia notified Australia that it had tested cattle that had arrived from Australia from
00:34 four export depots that had tested positive to lumpy skin disease.
00:40 Now this is a virus that affects livestock.
00:42 It's not harmful to humans but it's never been detected in Australia before.
00:48 We know that it's been found in Indonesia since early last year but Australia really
00:53 does trade on a disease free status including being free from lumpy skin disease.
01:00 So the Australian Government's been responding to Indonesia's concerns about those dozen
01:05 or so cattle that did test positive once they'd arrived in Indonesia.
01:10 We're awaiting the outcome of investigations into that and in the interim Malaysia has
01:15 decided that it's too concerned about these cattle that have tested positive in Indonesia.
01:21 It's followed suit and now says it won't be importing any livestock for fears that LSD
01:28 has been found there.
01:30 So what's been the response from the Government on this latest development?
01:34 Well Corrina it's really important that Australians know that the Chief Vet, the Federal Agriculture
01:39 Minister are determined that Australia is free from lumpy skin disease.
01:44 It's never in fact been detected here and they say that remains to be the case.
01:50 Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watts says biosecurity officials are working around
01:55 the clock to respond to Indonesia's concerns.
01:59 We even heard from the Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud his full confidence
02:03 in Australia's Chief Vet that he can once again prove Australia is free from this disease
02:09 and he's hopeful that once Australia can convince Indonesia of our biosecurity status that Malaysia
02:15 will then follow suit.
02:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]