THE insurgency movement against beef cattle levies hopes to set in motion a complete restructuring of the beef industry that will sweep aside all existing organisations and submit them to a reappraisal.
Led by Inverell processor John “J.R.” McDonald of Bindaree Beef, who helped drive the contentious “truth in labelling” legislation through NSW Parliament last year, the movement hopes to attract more than 1200 beef producers to its February 27 forum in Armidale.
According to Mr McDonald’s daughter and Bindaree spokeperson, Leigh Belbeck, Nationals senators Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash and Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan have already agreed to speak at the forum, along with Independent NSW MP Richard Torbay. The forum will be chaired by Alan Jones AO.
The insurgents contend that beef producer and processor profits are disappearing in levies that have done nothing to address declining consumption of beef or cattle prices that have in real terms been flat or declining for 20 years.
“Things have got completely out of hand with all the peak councils and the duplication, the costs, fees, charges and non-accountability,” Ms Belbeck said.
“We can’t keep throwing money without getting results. We think we need a complete restructuring, which means everything.”
“If we’re paying money to any type of entity, we need very clear targets so that we can see that we’re getting value for money.”
But Ms Belbeck said the February 27 forum would not be about “fixating on problems”, but instead focus on solutions.
Bindaree will offer what it believes is a possible path forward, in a statement which according to Ms Belbeck has been crafted with input from beef producers around Australia.
Most of the forum will be dedicated to hearing and collating ideas on how the industry might profitably restructure itself.
“What we propose may not be what we end up with, but it will be a starting point,” Ms Belbeck said.
Early feedback on the event has been overwhelming, she added. “We had more than 1200 producers at the 2004 NLIS protest meeting in Roma, and this looks like being bigger than that.”
MLA chairman and North Queensland cattle producer Don Heatley has also been invited to take the dias.
MLA’s managing director, David Palmer, expects himself and the other MLA staff who will be at the meeting to be under fire, but says he welcomes the opportunity “to explain how we see the world at large and the macro impacts on commodities, but most particularly on beef and how it is caught up in a worldwide malaise”.
“It’s a question of getting consumers in more affluent societies, with greater discretionary funds for food, to swing more purchasing power behind us when confidence returns,” Mr Palmer said.
He cites Australia’s success in carving out markets in Korea and Japan, and holding them in the face of United States resurgence in those markets, as a prime example of levy money reinforcing broad industry efforts — not just through in-country marketing but initiatives like NLIS, which have helped build trust in the Australian product in these countries.
The US beef industry has just launched a US$1 million-a-month Korean marketing campaign around the theme of trust to try to recapture some of the market share it lost to Australia over the mid-decade BSE outbreak.
Australian beef shipments to Japan may have fallen some 70,000 tonnes from the 400,000 tonne plus highs we enjoyed a few years ago, but now is not the time to give up investing in this and other markets, Mr Palmer said.
“The recession will turn around, and it’s a matter of holding the investment and capturing the turnaround.”
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