Katter 'filled with anger' over export mismanagement
Federal independent MP Bob Katter says beef producers will pay the penalty for serious mistakes made by Meat and Livestock Australia.
TranscriptTONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us is Bob Katter, the independent member for Kennedy, the vast north Queensland cattle country electorate.
Mr Katter is also the leader of newly-created Australian Party and he's in our Brisbane studio.
Bob Katter, you've just heard what the industry specialist on the ground is saying. What do you say in response?
BOB KATTER, INDEPENDENT MP FOR KENNEDY: Almost every single aspect of that interview filled me with anger, almost every single aspect of it.
The two great exporters in Australia which dominated their industries for about 20 years were Geoff Tancred and George Raptis, the seafood industry and the meat processing exporter.
Both of them said when you go into other country, you don't take an Australian white fella, if you like, over there to tell them what to do. You get a local to do the job.
Now we've sent a whole stack of Australians over there to tell Indonesians what to do. Well if there's one sure to get their back up, that was the way to do it. Now that is the first incredible, unbelievable stupidity.
The second one: for anyone who has worked cattle - now I'm not a cattleman. That's a very proud name and I wouldn't dare use that name, but I've worked cattle all of my life. I had the biggest meatworks in Australia which I was in and out of all the time as part of my job. And I know a hell of a lot of what I'm talking about here.
You simply have a large branding cradle with spring and a cable on it. I mean, when I saw that box I just couldn't believe that anyone could have been so stupid as to design that thing.
Now we're paying these people - every sale of our ox, the Australian Beef Producers Association under John Carter said if you set this up as you are setting it up, Mr National Party - and I'm not trying to have a go at the party here, I'm just saying that they told the party people and the deputy prime minister: if you set it up this way, then it will be run by the processors in the interests of the processors.
Last week the processors put out a document saying, and I quote you, "Live exports could curve beef export opportunities." Well they most certainly solved that problem through the body that they dominate. We pay for it. It's $5 - out of every time we sell an ox, they get $5 - or $4.20 to be exact.
TONY JONES: You're talking about - just to get this straight: you're talking about Meat and Livestock Australia and LiveCorp, the two organisations.
BOB KATTER: The information that we have been provided with says to us that they get $4.20 out of every ox that is sold in Australia, which should be somewhere about $50, $60, $70 million a year.
Now that's what they're getting to look after our interests. This person tonight admitted that they knew what was going on, that they'd sent people in to have look at this, they knew what was going on and they've known for years and years and years about it and they've done absolutely nothing about it except to provide a stupid box.
Now, you know, the Government: what have they done? They've punished the beef producers. I mean, these people live on our frontiers and I can tell you: they don't live particularly well. They do it very, very hard. And we deeply appreciate what they are doing for our country.
So who's going to pay the penalty for this incompetence? Who is going to pay the penalty? Those poor people up there in northern Australia, our frontiersmen, they're going to pay the penalty.
They're going to lose $150 million. The people that were responsible for it will go off completely unscathed. And everything I heard tonight would indicate to me, as did my discussions at the highest level with government, that they are going to do absolutely nothing of any effect whatsoever.
I mean, heavens, you can't spend a cradle up there with a spring and a cable on it. I mean, give me a break.
TONY JONES: Well, I mean, the other option I just canvassed with the expert on the ground is just putting stunners, the stunning devices in every one of the 100 abattoirs.
Now, there are issues in each of these places, but they've been there for 18 years. These steel boxes in fact have been there for 10 years, and apparently during that period of time no-one's kind of noticed what's going on.
BOB KATTER: Um, well of course they've noticed what's going on. And they've done nothing about it and they've been paid a fortune to carry out things in a toweringly incompetent manner.
But, look, you know, what is called a full halal kill or a full kosher kill, for that matter that goes to Israel, I mean, I don't want to go into the religious details and I don't want to tell people how to practise their religion. That is the height of arrogance, and we would deserve to be condemned if we went down that pathway.
But if you can go to stunners and they - their religious people accept it, that's marvellous. That's very simple, that's very easy to do. I mean, anyone can open up an abattoir. Ring up on the telephone and I'll give the MLA the phone number because obviously they haven't got the phone numbers where you can buy some stunners.
Now, we're losing $150 million and they can't find the money to put some stunners up there. Well, please get out of the way because I can probably provide you thousands of people that can do the job that clearly you can't do.
TONY JONES: Who should provide compensation for the cattle farmers caught at the apex of this crisis, the very people you're talking about, whose fault it isn't, because they had no idea what was happening to their cattle?
BOB KATTER: Let me be very, very clear on this: the meat and livestock authority is paid $4.20 for every beast. That seems to me to be - and I may stand corrected - about $50 or 60 million a year.
What do they do with it? What do they use it for? This is the very reason why they are paid that money. And I would think that there is a duty of care which has been breached here, legally.
Now, I don't profess to be an expert in the field of the law, but I don't have to be to see that there has been a breach of duty of care here.
Now the Government, that is responsible for the MLA, they were told by Carter and the ABA that they would be dominated and work in the interests of the meat-processing industry, which is in the main now foreign-owned, if the MLA was set up this way.
Now here is a very clear-cut case where this was very much in the interests of the meat-processing industry. Because what it's going to do is tumble cattle prices throughout Australia.
Half a million head of cattle and the cattlemen will now have - and the cattlemen will have to pay $250 on average between the West Australians and North Queenslanders - we'll have to pay an average of $250 to get the beast down from processing when the beast is only worth about $800. I mean, you'll have collapsed prices throughout Australia.
TONY JONES: I've got to interrupt you there. I mean, you're not suggesting there's some kind of conspiracy here where the large beef interests are going to take over the small interests as part of this process, this crisis?
BOB KATTER: No. No. I've never been into ...
TONY JONES: So that what are you saying? Well you've said follow the money trail and you can see who's profiting from this cruelty. What do you mean by that?
BOB KATTER: Well, it's very clear. If 500,000 head that are going overseas - because there will be a knock-on effect, I mean, Indonesia's quite right about that. There will be a knock-on effect.
So 500,000 head of cattle that are going overseas will be dumped on the Australian market. Now that will depress the price dramatically, so the cost of production in our meatworks throughout Australia will drop dramatically. Because there's only two sellers of beef in Australia, Woolworths and Coles, there'll be no benefit for the Australian consumers, but there will be great benefits for the meat-processing interests.
I mean, there's no conspiracy here. I mean, quite frankly, it's transparent and it was told all the time that the MLA would serve the interests of the meat processing industry and that's exactly what has occurred here.
TONY JONES: Let's go to ...
BOB KATTER: They knew the problem was there; they did nothing about it.
TONY JONES: Let's go to this threat from Indonesia to take Australia to the World Trade Organisation alleging discrimination, and they're basically arguing the same practices happen in Malaysia and possibly other places where Australian cattle are exported.
BOB KATTER: Look, Tony, maybe my own personal prejudices are come in here. As a lad of 18 I was handed an SLR rifle. I was called to give three telephone numbers and I was on 24-hour call-up to go and fight a war against Indonesia over the supply of fuel. We had to protect our oil pipeline and source of oil.
If people fight wars over protecting their source of oil, as we are at the present moment, then, you know, it worries me greatly that we are provoking our nearest neighbour who we should be very good friends with.
Now, I mean, good fences make good neighbours. It was the MLA's job to build good fences, and they let those fences fall down, or quite frankly the fences were never built in the first place.
TONY JONES: Do you think they'd have a case with the WTO or will the WTO make obvious exceptions for cases of animal cruelty being a cause for suspending trade?
BOB KATTER: Well I hate to say it, but my job is to protect the interests of my own country and to protect the interests of my own people, the frontiersmen of Australia, and I do that very proudly. And I don't think I'd be helping their cause to make comment upon that.
But I think it's in the interests of Australia to get on well with our neighbours all the time. These people have 80 million people going to bed hungry every night. I mean, if we're Christian nation, then we have some responsible to our fellow neighbours. The good Samaritan parable, I would refer people to.
But it worries me greatly what is taking place here. These people - hungry, we can provide them with protein very, very cheaply, and here we are - they will interpret this whether we want to or not - they will interpret this - misinterpret it in my opinion - as some sort of a hit at their religious beliefs.
Now, truly the people that have rung me up, Tony, actually were all cattlemen and they were horrified at the cruelty. I mean, if you're in the cattle business, you love your cattle. You don't want them to be tortured like that. And they rang me up very, very angry about the way the cattle were being treated.
Now of course, they are the people that are going to be mistreated very, very badly. I mean, a lot of these people are going to be bankrupted if they're selling the cattle for $750 a head. Now they got to dump them on the Australian market, less $250 for cartage costs; well, a lot of them are going to go broke.
So, I mean, where they were sorry for the way that their cattle were being treated, well now I'm very worried for them.
TONY JONES: Bob Katter, we'll have to leave you there. We thank you very much for taking the time to come and talk to us tonight.
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