Beef producers concerned that Australia’s lift of import restrictions could crumble industry

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Albanese government maintains the decision is based off science and assured industry imports won't pose any health risks. But not all farmers are convinced, who say the deal exposes Australia to biosecurity threats that could crumble industry.

Transcript

00:00The United States has been able to export to Australia since 2019, but certain products

00:09were banned over concerns related to Mag Cow Disease. That included beef sourced from Canada

00:15or Mexico or slaughtered in the US. Beef producers are concerned though that this could lead

00:22to some biosecurity risks in the future and that's certainly been a topic of conversation

00:27around the sale yards. Beef producer Scotty Han is someone who's been having a think about

00:33this. Scotty, first of all, starting with that news today, how are you feeling about those

00:38bans being lifted? A little bit gobsmacked, I've got to say. It's a huge call from our

00:45federal government to come out with something like this. It's a massive change to protocol

00:49and I guess it exposes us. I think it exposes us immensely. It's of immense concern and I don't

00:55know how what's changed apart from probably some political pressure from the United States.

01:01I mean initially it won't affect us because the United States are so short on meat at the moment

01:06that they're actually importing more than that. It's not going to affect us at the moment but

01:11mad cow and the diseases that they have over there, foot and mouth, if it gets into this country where

01:17we export, we're unique in that our clean green image is compromised immensely.

01:24How concerned are you that there is that very real prospect of mad cow disease or foot and mouth

01:31down the track from this decision? Well whenever there's a protocol in place to protect us and

01:38it's taken out of the equation, well it opens it up. I mean it's a deep concern I believe. Like I

01:43said a minute ago, 70% of our product beef is exported. If that was closed down, and it would

01:50close down overnight, there's no doubt about that. If we got foot and mouth or mad cow here,

01:54every country that we export now to would just, it would cease. So it's literally overnight.

01:59We can't eat all that product in this country and it wouldn't just affect beef, it would be sheep,

02:05any live animals, wool would be affected and countries throughout the world that we have a great

02:10trading partnership with. They would, they would just pull out. The federal government though has

02:16said there's been rigorous assessment and thought and science behind lifting this ban, that they won't

02:22compromise Australia's biosecurity. Well they already have haven't they, by pulling that. I think that's

02:28a cop out. I think again I believe it's political pressure from overseas and that's a knee-jerk reaction.

02:36And it's a bad one. Because like I said it would just kill our industry overnight. The thoughts as this

02:43news comes to light throughout the day are from producers. There are certainly a lot of reactions

02:49to be heard from all parts of our beef supply chain to the news about those bans being lifted.

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