Call for Restructure of the Red Meat Industry by New Government
AUSTRALIA - The Australian Beef Association has called on the new Australian government to restructure the country's red meat industry.
2 January 2008
2 minute read
* "The ABA welcomes a policy of deregulation in rural industries." |
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Australian Beef Association Chairman Brad Bellinger
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Australian Beef Association Chairman Brad Bellinger said that after a decade of inadequate performance by various taxpayer funded Red Meat Industry bodies and in particular Meat and Livestock Australia, the new Rudd Government has a timely opportunity to review these undemocratic structures and deliver tangible benefits to the producers who fund them.
Despite producers injecting over A$98 million annually in levies to MLA, (an increase of $16 million from last year), saleyard prices have dropped and the producers' share of the consumer dollar continues to be eroded, the ABA chairman said.
Mr Bellinger continued: "Australian producers are only receiving 50 per cent of the price that US producers are receiving and currently Brazilian producers are getting the same price as our producers, with only a third of our production costs. Both competitors are now taking our market share.
"In the meantime, the MLA sits flat footed, as they admitted at their recent AGM that it cannot directly increase producer returns. He called for changes in regulatory burdens such as the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) and Livestock Production Assurance /National Vendor Declaration (LPA/NVD) plus the compulsory levy that he said are costing producers out of the industry.
"Our competitors are not burdened with these schemes; - their so called benefits to producers are yet quantified," he said.
"The ABA welcomes a policy of deregulation in rural industries and hopes that the new Rudd Government can clean up the bureaucratic mess in the Red Meat Industry inherited from the previous Government."
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