75 sculpture artworks take over Gold Coast beach for Swell Festival

ABC NEWS (Australia)

An artful tide spanning 19 years and 900 sculptures, the Swell festival is a major drawcard for the Gold Coast. This year artists are taking inspiration from everywhere including pandemic lockdowns to housing stress and colourful crocheting with cultural significance.

Transcript

00:00 It can cause blisters and reduce milk production. It's not harmful for humans, but it's a really

00:07 big problem for the live export industry. Now, Indonesia is Australia's largest live

00:14 export cattle trade partner, which means that lumpy skin disease was a really big concern.

00:19 And when Indonesia implemented a ban on around four Australian exporters from sending their

00:25 cattle to Indonesia, it effectively brought trade to a halt. Now, those exporters were

00:31 in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, and three more faced restrictions

00:36 as well. So now that means that this news today about the export ban lifting is effectively

00:45 a sigh of relief for exporters who can now send their cattle back over there and the

00:50 export trade can resume. But basically, it's been spreading in Indonesia since March, March

00:55 last year, and it hasn't been detected in Australia at all. But Indonesia alleged that

01:02 cattle with lumpy skin disease had arrived in Indonesia on export ships from Australia.

01:10 So Lillian, do we understand a bit more about why Indonesia has now allowed live cattle

01:16 export trade to resume? Well, basically, it triggered a really big

01:21 diplomatic effort from Australia when Indonesia announced that it had banned live exports

01:28 from Australia. So a delegation, including the Chief Veterinary Officer, went over to

01:33 Indonesia this week to discuss the matter with Indonesian officials. And Anthony Albanese,

01:40 the Australian Prime Minister, in fact, raised it with the Indonesian President Joko Widodo

01:45 as well. But also within Australia, there's been extensive testing of cattle in Northern

01:52 Australia for lumpy skin disease since Indonesia announced its ban. And around 1,000 cattle

01:59 were tested since the ban, and none of them have returned a positive result for lumpy

02:04 skin disease. So essentially, now Indonesia is satisfied that there's not a risk that

02:09 cattle will have lumpy skin disease when they come over to the country from Australia. It's

02:16 news that's really been welcomed by the Australian Live Export Council, who said that it's a

02:22 relief, but they always expected that a good outcome would come about because there's such

02:28 a longstanding relationship between Indonesian and Australian live export industries, markets

02:34 rather. And the Agricultural Minister, Murray Watt, has also welcomed the news, saying it's

02:39 a testament to the calm negotiations between the two governments.

02:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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