Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill relates to the restructuring of the red meat industry, during which the meat processing sector has funded its marketing and research commitments through a voluntary contributions scheme. This will now cease to operate on 1 July 2007. The government are now proposing to support the meat industry’s view that collective funding for marketing, research and development is necessary for the sustained productivity of the meat processing sector, and therefore they are putting into place a statutory levy to enable the sector to continue its whole-of-industry commitment to undertake marketing, research and development programs. While the support for marketing, research and development in this industry is very important—and although I do not in principle disagree with the bill—I am concerned that there is nothing mentioned about keeping the focus of the research on the support of the workers in the industry in Australia. That has been mentioned on my side of the House.

There are many issues confronting the meat industry today, and one of them of course is the effect of drought, which has reduced the amount of stock becoming available. Add to this the focus the industry has in some areas on live export and there is beginning to be a lessor amount of meat processed in this country. Research is important to actually come up with alternatives, whether it be in processing, worker skills or markets. It seems that much of the industry is more intent on de-skilling than reskilling. That may reflect the federal government’s lack of incentives and courses for young people to learn about this industry and the many-faceted skills required. We must ensure that those skills are still being taught, because although we are moving to multiskilled workplaces in many instances the basics are still needed to become an employee in the big works.

I know from my own experience in Longford that the meatworks has been a pivotal point for many young people leaving school and getting work. Many go in unskilled, get injured and cannot continue. Because of the way that employment is set up these days, mostly on a casual basis, these workers do not get rehabilitated and are often put out on the scrap heap and lost to the industry. We must teach the skills they need. People need to learn to work safely so that they are not lost to the meat industry. Potential workers are being put off. We need those workers to be available in country areas where this work needs to be done. We need those core work skills to be taught at TAFE and through VET programs to allow workers to learn the skills to be able to work anywhere in the works—from the slaughter floor through to the boning rooms and the packing, chilling and freezing processes. We must enable the young ones to get experience in supervisory roles so that they can drive the changes rather than allow them to happen without them, putting them out of work.

Drought too has taxed the ability of farmers to have their best stock going to market and it is driving down the quality of our product that is processed here. Some of it is now being directed to overseas live markets where, although the price received does not differ much, the jobs are being exported. For example, 17 abattoirs have closed in Western Australia in the last 20 years and it must be put down to the fact that thousands of head are being exported live. There are no abattoirs north of Carnarvon now, yet there is still a lot of stock coming from that area.

This marketing levy could concentrate on finding out why the Middle East prefers our meat on the hoof, so to speak, rather than it being neatly packaged and sorted ready to go straight into the kitchen. It is not just to do with religion, as in the past we have undertaken halal kills for local consumption here and overseas. Why can we not put together an impartial trade mission with a representative from farmers and representatives of government and others in the meat-processing industry to go the Middle East and see for themselves the markets that exist and what would be required to keep the jobs in Australia. They may even discover new markets for our products, which have to be among some of the best in the world, despite the drought situation which has influenced the way some stock is being marketed.

It is not good enough to have our animals go offshore to somewhat dubious yards and kept in less than ideal conditions in the Middle East. They can still reject them, like the many troubles that we have had in the past where stock was left to roam the high seas looking for a buyer because of local politics in their original destination. I am sure the Minister for Trade remembers those difficult situations.

When talking about marketing, I think we should do more with new products. I still believe that Asia is much underdone with Australian meat products. We need to come up with products the market wants. Somebody once told me that Asian people did not like Australian lamb, that they felt it was too strong and they did not much go for it. With new ways of cooking with herbs and spices and with the right techniques in today’s world we could produce many products that that market would entertain. I am sure that a lot of people in the House have travelled into Asian and would have seen lamb being consumed there. They may not eat a leg of lamb like a roast in Australia, but there are many other ways of dealing with a product. We could do a lot better in Asia and we need to lift our game and maybe this bill could help us.

I remember some years ago I was in Jordan in the Middle East, and the member for Mallee was with me, and I can remember their meat industry saying—I would not say bragging—to get meat on the shelf there it had to come from kill within 72 hours and this prohibited imports coming from outside in a chilled form. There is no reason why you would not try to change that, and it is probably an issue with the WTO situation anyway. I can remember a case with Korea which was won by Australia and improved our opportunities there.

We should be looking to knock over some of these agreements and get meat and meat products into those broader markets. Agents and shippers make a lot of money from having animals sail around the world and, with modern thinking in this country and abroad, it will be hard to maintain live sheep and livestock exports to the degree that this country has. People think very differently and there will be a lot of pressure coming down the pipe over the next 10 years in that regard. I do not think it is a greatly sustainable industry, and we should be doing a lot more to get meat into those markets and allow us to improve what we sell there. Our traditional markets of Japan, America and Europe and of course Korea are highly paying markets and our processors and exporters like to maintain their positions in those markets.

While dealing with this bill I thought back to the person that started the levy system and set up the corporations structures for agriculture, John Kerin, the agriculture minister in the Hawke Labor government, who did such a good job in seeing the need for a structure that was driven by the market and also improved the processes on the farms to improve productivity and get the right products. I give this government credit that it saw that it was a good process and has maintained it in policy terms and probably improved it in some areas as well. I understand that people overseas also look at our system with some glee.

We know that the drought has already caused stand-downs in some of our major plants, and we foresee that this will continue next year until we can sort out new ways of raising stock and keeping them through dry times. There need to be new ideas, new structures and new ways of marketing, so that we can cater for the growers’ needs as well as the needs of those processing the meat, so all can make a good living out of our cattle and sheep industries.

Tasmania could have had another 580 people working in the industry if we had been able to keep the 75,000 cattle and the 280,000 sheep that were shipped out of the state live last year, not so much to overseas as to mainland markets. If the farmers are to be levied, they would really be better served to try and find answers for some of those marketing problems and to investigate ways of improving existing plants and ways of work that would benefit the farmers, the processors and the workers of this great industry.

Life has never been easy on the farm, and that really has not changed—there are still long hours of work, and the heartbreak of drought, stock losses and disease—but there are ways in which people are doing things differently, and now is as good a time as any to start looking at making sure our young people want to go back onto the farm and into the processors. Give them the skills to do more and better while still allowing them a good life. We all seek that. So when these sorts of bills come through the House, while I support the research and the marketing I do hope that those in charge of choosing what is to be done are people of vision and integrity, who want to see the betterment of the whole sector and not just one part of it. I thank the House and have much pleasure in supporting the bill.

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