Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I am going to raise three issues of concern to local beef producers, as they are indeed of concern to other producers across Australia. These are the current role and structure of the Cattle Council of Australia and of Meat and Livestock Australia, and the whole structure of the meat industry; their ability to adequately represent all producers, particularly the smaller ones; and the state of the meat processing industry, notably the decline of abattoirs across Australia.

The current structure of the CCA and the MLA has to change so that they can provide better representation in the other activities they carry out for those they represent and make the process of selecting members of those bodies democratic. It is a 1998 model and is not serving the current needs, markets, trends and the producers. The bigger the herd, the bigger the vote is how it works now.

Those times are past and a compelling case for change has been made by small producers and increasingly even larger ones who are dissatisfied. A local farmer has put it this way: he says a democratic election process and a requirement to have beef products accurately described in a simple and understandable manner at a consumer level would be an excellent start to improving the industry's situation.

The number of bodies has been expressed as a problem as well. In the words of small and large producers, local and across Australia, there are just too many peak bodies falling over themselves and not providing cogent and clear advice to government on the needs of the beef industry. There is the MLA, RMAC, ALFA, CCA, AMPC, AMIC, LESC and all the state based organisations and so on.

There is more. Luke Bowen, the head of the NTCA, was reported in the Rural Press following their April meeting as saying:

The system isn't providing a singular voice to represent us at a national level.

I can attest to that, having seen it close up. I saw that with the live export issue. I am told that last year, when RMAC chair, Ross Keane, was asked about the advice RMAC had given to the minister over live exports, he was said to have answered: 'We could not reach a consensus, so we didn't provide any advice.' That is just not an acceptable place to be. NTCA President, Rohan Sullivan, is quoted as saying that the lack of a single beef industry voice was a 'glaring deficiency' in efforts to deal with the live export matter. I also note that at a meeting of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association in April this year over 300 beef producers backed a proposal to use RMAC funds to review beef industry representation. I am not sure whether funds could be used in these particular ways, but it would be good to have it industry led. So far a few major players are saying it needs to be done but there is the lack of a single voice, leading all bodies to say who will do it and how it will be done.

On this topic I note that the CCA have had meetings amongst themselves and with others who are concerned about the structure and the industry, notably the Australian Meat Producers Group. CCA have put up a proposed model but it violates the guidelines for levies and would require some of the producers' levies to go to the representational work of the CCA. So it has two strikes against it. It cannot be taken seriously by the levy payers or by government. The levy payers are not going to let them hive off their levy money in that way. I recognise that there are problems with funding for all of the organisations. The CCA have also suggested that four of the 12-member board be directly elected by levy payers. Yes, it is a start, but it is not good enough. It ignores the MLA's structure and operations.

The third point is the silence around the decline in the meat-processing industry—namely, the closure of abattoirs around Australia. In 1979-80 there were 475 meat-processing abattoirs. By 1996 there were 160 fewer abattoirs, down to 315. In New South Wales, 17 closed—four in our area alone—and nine are left, with five being owned by foreign companies or jointly owned. This is a crisis in an industry that no-one seems to be taking notice of. Meat processing is local. It has local content, it is about value adding and it needs support. It is also a major regional employer, with most meat-processing facilities in local government areas having populations of 50,000 or fewer. According to Gary Burridge, the immediate past CEO of the Casino based Northern Co-operative Meat and spokesman for the AMIC— (Time expired)