Industry patience is wearing thin

For those who don’t remember, eight major red meat processors failed to attend Barnawartha saleyards in an alleged attempt to force the saleyards to adopt post-sale weighing of cattle instead of pre-sale weighing.

We demanded that, for the sake of transparency, all saleyards must adopt a policy of pre-sale weighing. We argued that it’s simply impossible to set a market price for cattle when different saleyards are using a different weighing basis. Backgrounders and feedlotters rely on pre-sale weighing to manage costs and margins, and determine bids. The post-sale weighing basis stops this part of the market from competing effectively in saleyards. It is discriminatory.

We argued at the time that the only way to ensure true competition in the sector was by selling cattle with their weight displayed at the point of sale.

We demanded, and received a Senate inquiry of industry practices.

We got an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission review into the matter as well.

But despite the fanfare around the need for a transparent industry, any mention of pre-sale and post-sale weighing has been curiously absent in any recommendations.

Now the commitments to improve transparency just sound hollow. We were let down by the ACCC when it provided no recommendation on pre-sale weighing in either its interim or final report into the beef market.

And when the Senate Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport released its interim report into the red meat sector last year, there was again no mention.

The committee’s final report was due out last week, after already being delayed from December. Now it’s been delayed until June.

The industry is running thin on patience. Pre-sale weighing was the catalyst for the whole Barnawartha boycott and it needs to be dealt with.

If the Senate fails to address this issue and the need for transparency in its final report, it risks whitewashing a toxic issue for the livestock industry.

Leonard Vallance, VFF Livestock President