John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Food Security, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

In a joint media release on 20 October 2009, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Minister for Trade and the Minister for Health and Ageing stated they were scrapping the ban on imported beef from countries which have had BSE outbreaks and beef would be allowed in from BSE infected countries from 1 March 2010. There has been widespread concern about this decision not only from Australian beef producers and retailers but also from Australian consumers. The coalition has taken a strong stance against simply opening our borders to whoever wants to import beef into Australia. We received strong support from around the country, with many echoing the sentiments of the General Manager of the Dairy Beef Alliance, Peter Wilkinson, in his letter to the minister for agriculture, Tony Burke. He said:

As the GM of a beef company producing in excess of 10,000 head annually for both domestic and export markets … I find it unacceptable that we are legally required to comply with NLIS while the government is happy to lower the bar for imported beef which could end up on the shelf beside our product.

It has to be made very clear that Australian beef is the safest in the world and the coalition is committed to ensuring that remains the case.

This is why the coalition has given notice of the Food Importation (Bovine Meat Standards) Bill 2010, which will ensure equivalence to Australian production standards, require the government to undertake an import risk analysis and require country of origin labelling for beef and beef products imported into Australia. The coalition believes that at the very least the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries must demand equivalency with current Australian standards, which would mean that any country which has had a BSE outbreak must have an equivalent to Australia’s National Livestock Identification Scheme, or NLIS, in place before they can import beef into Australia.

Under the Rudd government, Australian beef producers will have to produce beef to a higher standard than imported beef from countries which have had a BSE outbreak. Our industry legally requires an NLIS to sell beef to Australian consumers and it is ridiculous to suggest that we should lower the bar and allow beef in from countries which have lower food safety and quarantine standards than our own producers.

I was recently in Brazil and the United States talking to agricultural officials, beef processors and producers who all said they were aware of Australia’s NLIS and are jealous of it as a food safety, disease control and marketing tool. However, due to domestic politics a similar system will not be introduced in either country anytime soon.

The United States has abandoned its central plank in its BSE control measures, namely the National Animal Identification Scheme. On 5 February the United States Secretary of Agriculture announced that he had scrapped the national identification scheme in favour of a state based scheme which the USDA website states will ‘only apply to animals moved in interstate commerce and be administered by the States and Tribal Nations to provide more flexibility’. The USDA website states:

The new framework focuses only on animals that move interstate. So, small producers who raise animals and move them within a State, Tribal Nation, or to local markets, as well as to feed themselves, their families, and their neighbors are not a part of the framework’s scope and focus.

This is clearly not equivalent to the standards enforced by legislation on Australia’s beef producers.

Chief executive officer Ron DeHaven says that the American Veterinary Medical Association cannot endorse Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s new approach to animal disease traceability because there are simply too many unanswered questions. He said:

As I understand it they will let each state and tribal nation more or less develop their own program. So I’m concerned about interoperability between fifty or more different systems. Will one state be able to talk to another state as an animal moves through interstate commerce?

Bruce Knight, the United States Department of Agriculture’s marketing and regulatory undersecretary in the final years of the Bush administration, fears that abandoning the NAIS model will undercut US efforts to obtain a negligible BSE risk rating from the World Organisation for Animal Health.

The coalition has been concerned about the lack of consultation and the secrecy surrounding the government’s decision to abolish the ban on beef imports from countries which have had a BSE outbreak. I commend this bill to the House

Bill read a first time.

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