Mr Heatley blasted the Coalition’s stance on newly relaxed beef import rules during an AgForce red meat industry forum in Gayndah today (Friday).

His comments come as Coalition Senators led by Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash and Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan attempt to reverse the Rudd Government’s decision allowing the controlled entry of red meat from the US, a country previously detected with BSE or mad cow disease.

Mr Heatley said those politicians attempting to land punches on the Rudd Government by trashing the reputation of Australian beef with claims it was unsafe to eat were neglecting their duty as national leaders.

“The mischievous nature of our politicians, who are too busy enhancing their own careers instead of doing their jobs and asking common sense questions of the industry on this issue, has gotten way out of hand,” he said.

“I am a proud cattle producer and it really browns me off to see these politicians hold my industry – your industry – to ransom with their posturing. It’s just garbage.”

Mr Heatley said Senator Heffernan’s true agenda was not to tighten import protocols but to totally halt US beef imports, previously a paltry 34 tonnes compared to the 300,000 tonnes Australia exports to the US each year.

Mr Heatley said stopping imports would spark retaliatory action from our trading partners, especially if one case of BSE was ever detected in the Australian herd.

“Watch out for Senator Heffernan because what he wants to do is stop US beef imports, end of story. I can tell you that is not in our interests,” Mr Heatley said.

“We need to be arguing on the science and the science on both sides of the Pacific tells me that US beef is safe. We don’t need to be making decisions based on emotion.”

Earlier, people at the meeting heard from Queensland’s top government vet Ron Glanville dismiss BSE concerns, explaining there was “virtually zero risk” to the public and a negligible risk of detecting BSE in the Australian herd.

The meeting of 100 cattle producers and industry figures comes one week after several hundred angry farmers gathered in Armidale to protest changes to Australia’s beef import rules.