ABC Rural - Live animal exports
Click here to turn off audio player.
NIGEL SCULLION:
We went out of Jakarta, there's a number of places out of Jakarta. We principally had a look at the feed lots, but we had a number of discussions - long discussions - with people who basically are the industry in Indonesia. We listened to their concerns, and we were able to really focus in on what they thought were the trigger points, the sorts of things we needed, that haven't been done.
MARY GOODE:
What were they telling you?
NIGEL SCULLION:
First of all, the universal message was this complete exasperation about why Australia went about the way they've done. This is industry, and they were saying that the Government and the people everywhere are just so offended about how it was done.
MARY GOODE:
What in particular, what were they concerned about?
NIGEL SCULLION:
Well they were saying that we were a major trading partner with Australia. But with two hours notice they just said: "We're just closing the trade." And it wasn't as if we were closing the trade conditional to these things being done and as soon as that happens, it was just a vagueness about OIE standards. When they were told, they said, "Well, we told the Australians we have 9001 ISO Standards in place right now. And they've gone away for a couple of days and said yes, but we want it in addition to that. We now want this traceability issue. So they said well, we've got 120 days when the cattle arrive in Indonesia, we've got 120 day, can't you just keep those cattle coming? We've got the capacity through the NLIS to not let them out of the feedlots unless they're going to these facilities. And the upgrades are simply about having panels that can detect the ear tags as they go into the processing facility and on the slaughter floor, the dead beast, so we know there's no leak. That's just a process of actually getting some of this material to Indonesia and fitting it. There's no problems with anything else. But they were saying it just seems that the Australian Government, having made this crisis and created this problem, are still not there.
MARY GOODE:
So you mean they're not in Indonesia?
NIGEL SCULLION:
They don't appear to be in Indonesia. Certainly the industry are concerned that if you insult somebody, just any relationship, you know it's going to be far more credible if you apologise straight away or soon, you don't leave it for three or four weeks before you go and try to resolve that matter. Now I understand Kevin Rudd's going next week, when he's finished in Kurdistan or some other important place. He'll be eventually visiting Indonesia which we have a diplomatic crisis, which is causing a crisis across the North, so I guess they share our disappointment and frustration. These issues are resolved if government to government we are working very, very closely. Not at officer to officer level, and sadly we haven't sent the level of diplomatic individuals, across there, so we've suggested the Prime Minister should've gone over.
MARY GOODE:
How many abattoirs are you hearing are ready to go, with OIE Standards?
NIGEL SCULLION:
There are four abattoirs that are ready to go that meet OIE Standards. So I've been incredibly impressed when I went to actually an Indonesian-owned abattoir and they had their own electronic tagging system that actually tracks the cattle when they're feeding and all those sort of things. It was an excellent facility, all the cattle just looked absolutely fantastic and these are just a technical matter for them, we just need to extend that. But the principle is: why don't they just lift the trade subject to this, and let them go, because they're concerned the Australian Government will again change the goal posts. It's not OIE, it's got to have tracking, what else? And from Australians perspective, it's the time that this takes. Our communities and our farmers are in meltdown. We now know that a farmer in Western Australia, Nico, is going to have to start shooting cattle tomorrow. He's going to have to shoot two-hundred cattle a day. These aren't mice, these are 300kg lumps. It's just hard to imagine somebody who's looked after these animals and brought these animals up now has to shoot 3,000 of them.
MARY GOODE:
And that's because he doesn't have a market, is that right?
NIGEL SCULLION:
No, that's because he has a destock order in place because he can't have twenty-five, because he's just bought the property and the destock orders gone from 25,000 to 75,000 head normally when he bought the property ready to ship them out. Bang! No market. Not only Indonesia, you can't give cattle away, and you know, he's got a destock order; he has to meet that order. So tomorrow he starts shooting animals. You can imagine would feel, the mental health issues that are going to be around the place if this becomes the norm. And that's why there's such an amount of emergency in this. And the Australian Government, particularly Joe Ludwig, they puddle along. "Oh, look. We won't waste a single day." Well I didn't find a single person on the ground representing the Australian Government over there, and industry were reflecting to me that they are disappointed that the Australian Government having made this great gap are not there then resolving it. Well these are then excellent facilities; these are world standard facilities, so the trade can start immediately. There's no doubt about it.
MARY GOODE:
Only to four abattoirs though, it won't be many cattle.
NIGEL SCULLION:
Oh no, we can put 40% of the, the other abattoirs we're talking about may actually slaughter 9 animals a night. They're the sort of ones we saw on Four Corners, even though they didn't represent that. Sometimes they don't slaughter any. So they have there the people who were involved in that atrocity that we saw, just this stupidity and cruelty, where people who often possibly had never worked on a slaughterhouse floor before, but they're just casual labour, because they're only open now and again to slaughter a few cattle. Now that's probably 50% or 60% are very, very small abattoirs over there that are itinerant, if you like, slaughterhouses. The principal ones there would do the vast majority of the animals. And in any event we've accepted they're only going to go to an approved facility. And so we need to start the trade again to those facilities that have improved, and the market that the other facilities that they want to get industrial levels of cattle, to access that they’ll have to meet those standards as well. And the industry are working very closely with all those very smaller abattoir over there to ensure they lift the standards to ensure that they can also receive these cattle.
MARY GOODE:
Stunning: do you know think that is a requirement that is necessary? And how much stunning equipment is being put in these Indonesian abattoirs?
NIGEL SCULLION:
Well most of the abattoirs only have one, they only kill one animal at a time, it’s not a multiple train system.
MARY GOODE:
How many abattoirs have the equipment?
NIGEL SCULLION:
Well there’s, as I said, there’s four abattoirs that currently have the equipment.
MARY GOODE:
And they have stunning, do they?
NIGEL SCULLION:
They have stunning now, they have stunning. And they’ve been … it’s not only they have stunning, there’s the whole process has been approved under an International Organisation that has third-party auditing. Whether they audit health systems in hospitals, whether they audit live animal slaughter in abattoirs, and these have been running like that for a while. And that’s the great tragedy: you’re saying you’re stopping the trade for a small amount, but he should have let the trade continue to those abattoirs that met the Standards. Instead we have a complete embargo on trade and that’s not doing any body any good.
MARY GOODE:
There’s mixed messages coming back from Indonesia about how this is affecting relations. From what you saw, how have Indonesian-Australian relations been affected?
NIGEL SCULLION:
They have been affected very negatively, people feel genuinely insulted. And they feel, they can’t understand why there wasn’t a different attitude towards it. Why didn’t they work with the Indonesian Government, closely with the Indonesian Government? Why didn’t they follow the protocols of the G20? I mean, the ink was dry on the page; twenty nations have now prescribed how we will behave in relation to each other. And I mean, the ink’s hardly dry on the paper of Kevin Rudd signing it off and what happens? Two hours notice, we’re going to sanction your country. Well that is conflict with the agreement we have made with G20: that there is a negotiating and a mediation period before we put a sanction on another country, and I’m not surprised at all that they are as offended as they are.
MARY GOODE:
Did you have problems accessing any abattoirs? Because we’ve stories that people – Australians – aren’t allowed into abattoirs.
NIGEL SCULLION:
That’s not the case. It’s not the case that they’re not allowed into abattoirs, we chose not to go and visit abattoirs specifically because of the sensitivities. We didn’t want to make a bad situation worse in a diplomatic sense, and we let them know, if that’s going to be sensitive because they all feel so offended about how they were treated then this is going to be the case. So we decided not to actually go to slaughter floors, but we looked at all other elements of the chain. We looked about how about industry over there in Indonesia and how industry in Australia are working very closely together through the MLA and other organisations to ensure that we have this traceability. Everything else is in place, but there’s still a great nervousness, that it comes down to a Minister who somehow has to be satisfied, rather than prescribing what would satisfy him and saying: “We will open the trade conditional to this.” Because they worry about the goalposts being changed again.
MARY GOODE:
Didn’t you say you went to an Indonesian abattoir?
NIGEL SCULLION:
No, we didn’t go to an Indonesian abattoir. I’ve seen the levels of amenity, facilities and machinery they use, the different stunners, it’s a different stunner than is used in Australia, so I’ve seen all that level of amenity, but I didn’t actually but I didn’t actually go and visit a slaughter floor where they were slaughtering animals. I thought it was something I would have liked to have done, particularly because I’ve worked on a slaughter floor in another life myself and I’d be able to make some direct comparisons. But there were some sensitivities, and in acknowledgement of those sensitivity and their wishes we said, “No, no.” We could’ve gone, but we chose not to.
MARY GOODE:
So you could’ve gone?
NIGEL SCULLION:
Yes, yes. There was no prohibition, I could’ve gone. But we decided that we didn’t want to add any risk of another sensitivities in this regard. This is just so important for North Australia and they’re bleeding to death at the moment without having some inept steps made diplomatically.
MARY GOODE:
Okay, Nigel Scullion thanks so much for your time.
NIGEL SCULLION:
Lovely to talk to you.
ENDS.
Upgrade your flash player to play the audio
