Australia's cattle exporters disappointed with cattle exports to Indonesia suspension

Live cattle export bodies on Wednesday said it is disappointed with Australian federal government's decision to temporarily suspend all live cattle exports to Indonesia.


The federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig on Wednesday announced to suspend all live exports to Indonesia until the welfare of cattle can be guaranteed.


The suspension came following ABC1's Four Corners last Monday released footage, which showed Australian cattle being tortured in Indonesian slaughterhouses.


The decision was hugh for Australia's live cattle export bodies, as Indonesia is the biggest buyer of Australian live cattle, accounting for about 60 percent of the market.


According to the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association president, Rohan Sullivan, the suspension of trade means exporters are stuck with thousands of cattle waiting in depots south of Darwin of Northern Territory, and they have to may for the feeding cost for an unknown period.


"I am disappointed that it has had to come to this," he was quoted by ABC News on Wednesday.


"But I do believe this may be the difference between being able to keep this trade or lose it altogether."


Cattle Council of Australia chief executive David Inall said the ban will particularly hurt the Northern Territory.


"There are tens of thousands of cattle that are in the system in northern Australia moving towards ports," he said.


"This is going to be a huge dislocation in northern Australia."


Central Queensland grazier Melinee Leather said northern producers will be forced to compete with their southern counterparts.


She said they will have to fork up to 214 U.S. dollars per head of cattle in transporting their stock to southern feedlots for the domestic and other international markets already covered by other producers.


Leather said the markets will be flooded, "because we have a percentage of northern cattle that used to go live and now have to go somewhere else".


She added that 1200 Queensland jobs depended on the live cattle export industry, which rakes in about 375 million U.S. dollars in national revenue, and Wednesday's suspension is going to impact on the entire Australian beef industry and communities.


Wednesday's announcement is a win to for Animals Australia and the RSPCA, which had been pushing for a total ban, as well as Labor backbenchers who joined the push after the massive response from the public to the Four Corners footage.


However, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce is highly critical of the suspension.


"We have over-reached and that will have consequences," he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.


Earlier, Ludwig said he is confident the industry will be back on its feet before the end of the suspension of up to six months, adding that he will soon talk with live cattle export industry about the impact of the ban.
(Source:http://news.xinhuanet.com)