6 May 2009
DAFF09/111T
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke
Interview with Michael J Bailey, 990 4RO AM, Beef Australia 2009, Rockhampton
(E&OE)
SUBJECTS: Rockhampton Beef Week, agricultural exports, farmgate prices, ACCC inquiry, mental health in regional areas, seafood traceability, quarantine requirements, ‘food miles’ campaign.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: We’ve got the Minister here who actually helped out Beef Australia big time. Because there was a bit of a situation there, wasn’t there? By the way, talking to you, Tony Burke. How are you?
TONY BURKE: G’day Michael.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: He is our Minister. And of course, he actually helped out Beef Australia to the tune of $2 million. Well done. I’d like to congratulate your hand, sir. Because Kirsten Livermore was actually banging on your door, wasn’t she?
TONY BURKE: That’s right. And I don’t think anyone has to worry about the extent to which they got strong representation from Kirsten. The knocking on the door started … it would have been the very beginning of last year.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Ok then.
TONY BURKE: And there was a lot more than one knock.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I bet it was. It must be pretty scary when every time you turned, there’s Kirsten Livermore – knock, knock, knock, knock.
TONY BURKE: That’s right. Well it would have been scarier if we hadn’t been able to come through with the money. But it’s great now to be able to turn up and wander around and see exactly what happens here at the Beef Expo.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Of course. She’s painted the picture. You’ve never actually seen it, have you?
TONY BURKE: No, it’s my first time here. Arrived in last night. You get a description. You hear the number of breeds, you hear the number of people, you hear the number of trade stalls. What you don’t get until you actually arrive is the enthusiasm, the buzz that’s here in the air, the optimism for the sector, the energy of the event.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I’ll tell you what’s really cruel, is when all the restaurants start firing up the barbecues for breakfast. And the smell just wafts. And you’re just sitting here going, “Come on, come on.”
TONY BURKE: Yeah as I was wandering home last night – midway through the rodeo I was taking off – I wandered past a whole lot of food places. And you start to think, “Could I have a fourth meal today? Could I have a fifth?” And you realise for all the talk of the breeds and everything, ultimately it comes down to the best steaks and the best meals in the world. You can smell them as you walk through here.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Now as far as export values, beef is in the top three, isn’t it?
TONY BURKE: That’s right. And it’s our biggest agricultural export. About two-thirds – although recently figures are looking even better – of what we produce finds its way overseas. And there’s a lot of people who I’ve met here who I’ve also met in Indonesia, in Japan, in Korea, where I’ve been promoting beef. And some of the producers who’ve been over there with me and have been working on those overseas markets together.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: You must be fascinated to think that we really are such a small country, yet we supply so much beef in the region, don’t we? You know, Indonesia, Japan, Korea. We could supply more beef to America, except of course that they stop it.
TONY BURKE: You don’t really get a sense of it until you talk to people, say from Japan or Korea, or to some extent Indonesia. And they start talking about food security and their worries of making sure they always have a food supply for their nation. And as an exporting food nation, we’ve always got heaps of food and we’re sending it around the world – just that sense of the opportunities that are there for us because we’re able to produce the sort of quantities that you’re talking about. But beyond that, the quality of what we produce is just streaks ahead of what comes from other parts of the world.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: It is. I actually saw something on one of the current affair programs last night that we’re actually being ripped off. Did you see that?
TONY BURKE: No, I was probably on my way to Beef Week.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Well they’re saying that farmers, ten years ago were being – I’ll pluck a figure out of the air – say they were being paid $700 for their beef. Ten years later they’re still only getting $700. They’re saying somewhere along the system, we Aussies, as consumers, are being ripped off. And then they compare, in Australian dollars, the prices that are being charged in the States and the UK to what’s being charged in Australia. It was quite an eye-opener actually.
TONY BURKE: Ok. No, I didn’t get to have a look at that. I mean it’s true for the exporters, the shifts in the dollar that have happened over the last 12 months have made massive changes in the cost of what it takes to get a steak all the way from the paddock onto your plate.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: It was really strange because they were actually pointing the finger at the large supermarkets. We won’t mention their names. But if it’s true, they’re forcing the price down for farmers while their prices keep going up. If this is true, because what came out of the report was that farmers are too scared to actually put their hand up. Because the big people will say, “No, we don’t want your beef.”
Is this a preluding to these big organisations forcing the farmers out and importing meat? It has happened before. And I’m thinking, “Surely this couldn’t be happening in a country that is so well known for beef around the world, that we’re actually importing beef?”
TONY BURKE: We held a major inquiry through the ACCC last year. And in that inquiry we tried to get to the bottom of these complaints you hear all the time about the difference between what a farmer gets when they’re selling at the farm gate and what it ends up costing in the supermarket.
And it was the same story as what you’ve said now. It’s very difficult to get people to come forward officially and to provide the evidence that you keep getting anecdotally. But ultimately to be able to get to the bottom of it you need people to come forward and explain exactly what they see happening.
But I’ve got to say, your end point there I don’t think we’ll get to. I cannot imagine a situation where Australian customers are going to the supermarket and choosing the beef that’s not Australian.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Oh, no, that’s terrible. I mean, we’ve had beef from overseas and it’s very average. Put it that way. Because we actually export 953,990 tonnes of beef. You can’t picture that, can you?
TONY BURKE: No. You wouldn’t want to [inaud]
MICHAEL J BAILEY: And it’s worth $4.6 million a year. I mean it really is a lifesaver for this great country, isn’t it?
TONY BURKE: Particularly at the moment. You look at what’s happened with the global economy at that moment and the pain that is there. If you want to be anywhere in the world, you want to be in Australia at the moment. Other countries are doing it much tougher than us at the moment. We’re still going through some difficult times. But if you look at the figures, it’s agriculture that’s been holding the economy up. And we had a couple of quarters in the last year where it was agriculture that was keeping us in positive territory at all. And the biggest part of that is the Australian beef industry.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: It is indeed. That’s why we’re here at Beef Australia 2009. It’s one of those situations where people come in and they’re still gobsmacked after 21 years. There are so many new adventures. You go into this Beef Central stadium.
TONY BURKE: Wasn’t it great in there?
MICHAEL J BAILEY: And there’s all these guys and girls are lined out. We’ve got all these great adventures on how to actually make the beef industry better long-term. Which is just amazing. Or the fellow just round the corner here, I was talking to him and his wife and thought, “Well hang on a second.” When people buy his knapsacks and everything, it’s usually just baggy green. Well the wife wanted to do it in different colours. And now it’s an award winner. She’s exporting overseas.
TONY BURKE: And this is often where people say, “How can a nation like Australia compete with places like Brazil, places with much lower wage levels? How can we keep competing?” And the answer’s simple. It’s because we farm smarter. And if we can do the work smarter than the rest of the world then we’ll be able to continue to be as competitive as we are on the world market.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: And of course, you’re on the ground. (inaud) What’s it been like?
TONY BURKE: Well it depends what part of the country you’re on. The southern parts of the country, the drought’s still very wide and very deep. I was chatting to a bloke in one of the queues here last night who I last caught up with in Cloncurry. And so they’ve just started their first muster. They’re waiting for the neighbours to do the muster to find out how many of their cattle found their way next door during the floods.
So it’s very different challenges in terms of major weather events at the moment. The recovery from that is a front-line issue for people all around. Beyond that, people do want to have the maximum level of certainty, and often more certainty than markets can provide. But it’s our role to try to help them through with that.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Are you hearing that farmers who aren’t [inaudible] yet are still toughing it out? There’s a lot of suicides are going around at the moment. There’s a lot of counselling going on.
TONY BURKE: This is one of the things that really worries me with our drought policies. We’ve developed the policies – both sides of politics have always done it for the right reasons – and we still end up with some of the most disturbing mental health and suicide figures in any parts of the nation.
I look at the ways we’re currently providing assistance. And I haven’t been able to land at a definite way forward yet. But I keep thinking, “There’s got to be a better way of doing it.” You can’t have the policy settings right if you keep getting some of these figures that we see. Every one of those figures is not just the devastation for the individual involved, but the family forever after.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Do you think it’s a guy thing? Because you know, we’re idiots sometimes. You know, the girls, if they’re not feeling well, they’ll go for their examinations, they’ll go for their monthly check-ups. But we guys, we don’t want anyone touching us. And when it comes to mental health, I know it’s usually the wives who try to talk them into it. And they go, “No, nothing wrong with me, Sheila. I’ll just go in the back and play in the shed.” Is that one of the things that we have to overcome?
TONY BURKE: Look, isolation often doesn’t help in those situations. And there’s different work that a whole lot of people do at a community level to in trying to make sure that people are brought together. And part of that is just the social nature of it. Part of it as well is making sure that when someone really needs to make a connection to another person, they get the opportunity to do that. And working the land, there’s always going to be a level of isolation, compared to when you’re in an urban setting.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: A lot of people choose it, don’t they? A lot of country people come to the city and they’re out of there in 48 hours because it’s just too busy.
We’ll be back with the Minister in just a moment on Unmissable Talk 990 4RO.
Talking to Tony Burke. He’s our Minister. We’re talking about beef. And I thought I’d like to change the subject and go to fish.
TONY BURKE: At Beef Week?
MICHAEL J BAILEY: At Beef Week. Because people like to have reef and beef, because that’s the traditional way down under. How is the fish industry going in Australia? I get a lot of mixed reports that people still have to send their fish off Australia for processing then brought back into Australia. There’s something wrong with that sort of scenario isn’t there?
TONY BURKE: The biggest challenge facing the seafood industry continues to be stocking rates. We’ve paid a price for a lot of overfishing that’s been done largely by fishers from other countries, either within or unbelievably close to our waters. And we do have stocking rates at the moment in seafood generally that are way below what I’d like to see. So that’s the biggest challenge, finding ways of getting those stocking rates up.
And then you go the issue that you referred to - how can you maximise the amount of processing that’s actually done here in Australia. It’s similar to the conversation we were having a few minutes ago with beef, where it’s, “How do you compete with the rest of the world?” We’re not going to be able to compete with the poorest nations in the world on wages.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: You’ll never compete with $3 an hour.
TONY BURKE: And I don’t want to be a country that competes with $3 an hour in terms of wages. So the only way we can compete at that level of the processing is try to be pushing the research and development, pushing ways that we can do that work smarter than other countries of the world. And that allows us to get as much of the value chain here in Australia as we can. There’ll be parts of the value chain, from time to time, that are done in other countries. We want to get as much of that value chain as we can here.
When I first got the job I started talking to the fishing industry and agriculture and forestry to say that I didn’t want to be a minister who only looked at what you could do within the farm gate. I want to look the whole way down the value chain and see how we can maximise Australia’s role down there.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Because I find it fascinating. Australia’s farmers are world leaders, you know, when the cow is born, it gets tagged and you follow it all the way through to processing. So if someone in Japan or Korea is having a slab of beef, they know it came from this particular cattle, was raised in this particular part of the world, any problems with it goes back to the farmer.
TONY BURKE: And can I tell you, and I’ve seen in the supermarkets there, little barcodes that are on top. You carry the barcodes over to the screen and up comes a picture of the property. It’s extraordinary the traceability that’s available now. And that’s something that we’ve really pioneered as a nation in Australia.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I wish they could actually transfer that to everything else. Because, like fish, where has it come from, and more importantly, how old is it? No one tells you, when you go into a supermarket, how old that fish is. After they’ve defrosted it, it looks fresh, but it’s not. Because we know they’ve defrosted it because if we don’t eat it within 24 hours it swims away on its own plate. How old is that fish – is there anything coming in that will actually tell us, so that we can have confidence?
TONY BURKE: I’ve got to say on the issue of the age of the fish, I haven’t had that raised with me before. I mean, it’s there now. So I’m happy to look at where industry’s at on it.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Do you think we’ve actually gone backwards on a level playing field? The reason I ask you that Tony is that a lot of farmers have closed down. We used to have the juiciest of oranges. I don’t buy apples any more. Because I remember in the old days you used to buy an apple - remember the juice used to run down your cheeks? Remember those days?
TONY BURKE: Yeah.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: They’re far and few between.
TONY BURKE: I’ll say to you some of the grocery shops I go to, I reckon you can still get them. Don’t you give up on our apple growers.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: No. I’m not giving up on our apple growers. What I’m saying is, there seems to be more imported fruit hitting the shelves that local fruit. And I think that is so wrong and I put it down to the level playing field. Or is it the import/export?
TONY BURKE: No I think a lot of it is that we’re now able to get fruit out of season. And that’s when most of the imported stock comes in. And so if you go to some parts of the world you’ll find oranges, for example: half the year they’re selling Californian oranges, the other half of the year they’re selling Australian oranges.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Those oranges are over six months old. And any nutritionist will tell you, after three months they’re gone.
TONY BURKE: Yeah, that’s the idea of doing the counter season. So that you’re eating your own stuff fresh in season. But if you want to eat out of season, when we’re not producing anyway, it’s at those time that the imports actually have their better prices.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: So if you want a juiceless orange, buy it out of season. Is that what you’re saying? Because it is, isn’t it?
TONY BURKE: There’s no doubt, in season’s going to be fresher. In season’s going to be the local stuff. But I’m certainly not going to argue against the counter seasonal stuff being available because that’s where we get our export market. And our growers really rely on that.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I just find that a lot of farmers are shutting their gates because they can’t compete. Is that the level playing field’s fault? We as a nation can never be on a level playing field. That’s why we’ve lost our factories of shoes, clothes, electronics. You know, we’ve lost so many things, haven’t we, over the years?
TONY BURKE: Yeah, but with agriculture I get other countries saying to me, “We can’t compete with Australia. We can’t build a level playing field with you.” And I’m saying, “Well our product’s the best. Do you want to buy it?” So I have those conversations in the reverse directions as well. And when we’ve got a product like Australian beef that we can sell to the rest of the world, and they’re putting up every excuse as to why they ought to put up barriers against our product, my argument is really clear. It is to say, “Your consumers want to buy it. It’s the best product available. It’s clean. It’s fresh. You’ve got no argument.”
MICHAEL J BAILEY: How do you go against those countries that continue to put up barriers? We’re playing the game by being in a level playing field. We’re allowing beef to come in from other parts of the world. We’re allowing chicken, of all things. You know, I just shake my head. Chickens are coming in processed.
TONY BURKE: It’s pretty heavily cooked, your chicken meat.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Why you would even allow it in the country is beyond me. It’s so heavily cooked, and once again the age issue. What do you do with those countries, like America, who can only import X,Y,Z?
TONY BURKE: This is where the hammer and tong arguments of trade negotiations take place. When you consider that Australia’s exporting something like two-thirds of what we produce in agriculture, then we’re doing okay in those arguments.
We’ve got a long way to go. And there are some places, like the EU [European Union] recently reintroduced their dairy export subsidy. Now they’ve said that’s only a temporary thing. They’ve got a deadline for when that goes. The deadline part of it I think they will keep to. But I don’t know if they think they should have reintroduced it in the first place. So these things are always an ongoing battle. And they’ll complain about different restrictions that we’ve got.
Ultimately you want to get to a situation where, for Australian producers, they’ve got as many choices as possible as to market access. And that means you don’t go giving away things in your trade negotiations without always making sure that you’re moving forward.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Always one step ahead. What about the EU? They’re looking at a situation where they look at how far food products come from and you can tax them.
TONY BURKE: Oh, the food miles stuff.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Food miles, is that what I’m thinking of? Oh, no, please.
TONY BURKE: It’s nothing other than another excuse for protectionism. That’s all it is.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Are they picking up on that?
TONY BURKE: Look they were talking about doing it. They backed away. Some of the supermarkets will label stuff. As an environmental campaign, it’s nuts. Because you’ll get a banana in a British grocery store, I’ve been told, with styrofoam underneath it, plastic around the top and with a sticker saying how many food miles, as if you’re doing something environmentally helpful.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I see South Australia’s actually banned plastic shopping bags. You know, it’s on the waver. What’s wrong with those shopping bags that actually self destruct against the sun? Why do we have to pay a tax when it’s already (inaud)?
TONY BURKE: Point taken.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Let’s talk about beef. Our live cattle exports are worth a huge amount of money. I believe $408 million a year. Why do we have to export live? Can’t we just process it here? Because don’t you find that with live, basically they start building up in their own countries and all of a sudden the exports start dropping off?
TONY BURKE: Depends what you’re selling. If you’re selling cattle, for example, which is going straight to the feedlot - which is largely what trade Australia usually does - then they just fatten there. But they’re just not in a position to significantly take on a beef industry in the way that we have.
They’ve got some, but it’s not being used in that way. Somewhere like Russia’s a different example. But when the animal’s being sold for breeding, you’re getting a very different price. And I think if a local producer wants to sell for a really good price, it’s not my role to be standing in the way and saying, “No, you’re not allowed to do that.”
MICHAEL J BAILEY: So those farmers who are complaining on a regular basis that they’re being screwed by the majors, they really should step forward, shouldn’t they? Talk to you directly?
TONY BURKE: And the authority that deals with these issues is the ACCC. We’ve got an authority to deal with the exact sort of complaints that people are making. And they actually made public statements at the time saying, “We’ve heard all these complaints saying, but we’re wanting some people to come forward.”
MICHAEL J BAILEY: I was watching it on TV, and no one stepped forward. But they were so scared of losing what little they had. And surely the Commission could see that they couldn’t act.
TONY BURKE: Well, how do you make a decision without evidence, in terms of the actual people who are complaining coming forward about it? I didn’t run that inquiry so I’ve looked at it from a distance. But the response from the people involved in it were quite strong.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Now here you are at day three of Beef Australia 2009. How do you feel?
TONY BURKE: Well it might be the first time I’ve been here. But it’s not going to be the last. I’ve absolutely loved it so far. The energy at the place is great. Someone remarked last night that it’s 60,000 head of visitors, which isn’t a bad herd to be finding their way through.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Hang on a second, now Kirsten Livermore, did you hear what he actually said? He’s coming back next year.
TONY BURKE: Not next year. Three years. I’ll be in Rocky [Rockhampton] before that.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: He’ll be here in three years. So you’ll book him in?
KIRSTEN LIVERMORE: Ok, yes.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Make sure he’s ready. Because we need him. And thank you very much, because I know that Kirsten Livermore did an incredible amount of doorknocking to make sure that Beef Australia 2009 actually went ahead. Are you satisfied with the investment now?
TONY BURKE: I’m completely satisfied with the investment. And I’ve got to say that were it not for that advocacy right at the beginning, as it happened early enough that we were able to get everything together, we wouldn’t have been able to help out to the extent we have. So I’m personally very grateful to Kirsten for knocking on doors as early and hard as she did.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Fair enough. Hey Tony Burke, Minister, thank you very much. Let me shake your hand. You’ve done well. I’m glad you’re enjoying Beef Australia. Are you in just for the day? Or are you here for a couple of days?
TONY BURKE: No, came in last night. But I’ve got to head down to Bundaberg this arvo.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Don’t forget. I think you’re going to Yeppoon, aren’t you?
TONY BURKE: I was over in Yeppoon this morning.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Handing over a cheque for $3.5 million.
TONY BURKE: We’ve got the announcement for later in the day. And it’s all good news.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: Oh, should I have said that? Oops. Yeppoon, look out for your favourite minister.
TONY BURKE: People heard it first here on 4RO.
MICHAEL J BAILEY: $3.5 million cheque coming your way. I won’t say anything more.
[ENDS]