Agmates

NSW Cattle producer “Straight Talking” John Carter writes: (Opinion)

Australia’s new Trade Minister, Simon Crean (pictured), is coasting along on the back of the same idiotic advisor’s that have taken Australia to the second highest debtor nation in the OECD during a mineral boom.

His disappointment at the new US Farm Bill continuing to subsidize grain farmers is akin to a child bemoaning the setting of the sun. “Please Mummy, stop it going away”. They have repeated the disappointment press release for over 30 years! These people need a heavy dose of reality salts.

Chinese, European and US Governments have known for years that food supply is as important as defense.

Australia’s fat cat bureaucrats, NFF (National farmers Federation) officials on their career paths and Business class travel around the world and empty minded ministers in First Class don’t want to understand this very basic concept.

Amongst public figures only the late Bob Santamaria and Independent Federal MP Bob Katter (pictured) have been able to see and say . Bob, apart from his deep reading and use of the Parliamentary Research Library lives in the far north of Australia and is closer to the real world.

Insular Canberra doesn’t understand that when you are in a hole and want to get out of it the first thing to do is to stop digging. They neither understand holes or digging. They just keep travelling and polluting the atmosphere with their free trade passports. Why?-

“Put your money on self interest, you always know that it is trying”.

We are disappearing under a mountain of debt. We have the second highest interest rates in the OECD- and rising because we have to service the huge debt and, unlike the USA, we don’t have the power to claim that ours is the world currency and print it with no backing. Our high interest rates mean speculation in “carry trades” as money men borrow at 0.5% in Japan and lend at 7-8% in Australia. Madness.

We now import all sorts of food from subsidized Communist China. We have destroyed our manufacturing industry and are destroying our pork, orange, milk and sugar industries. The policy is the antithesis of Pliny’s AD 69 call to Rome ” We must, whatever happens, safeguard the family farm”.

When I went to Paris in 1983 on my Churchill Fellowship tour and met with OECD officials they told me that they had dismissed Australian negotiators as fools as they protested at subsidies.

But what about our beef access to the world? With the world’s only mandatory RFID NLIS we can’t get another kilo into Europe. We haven’t filled the US quota for 5 years and are unlikely to ever fill it again as drought and alternative land use lower our herd.

As we near parity with the US dollar expect to see US Choice grade beef begin to appear in our top restaurants. “They can’t do that, they have no NLIS and they have BSE” we will cry -That mightn’t work-. South Korea is BSE free and the US are forcing their beef in there even without a free trade agreement finalized.

But what about our mineral exports to China? No Free Trade agreement there or with Russia where some of our beef is now going. “Our minerals will save us”. Look at South Africa but worse-look at Nauru.

Nauru was one of the wealthiest countries on earth as its phosphate royalties flooded in, there was no push for alternate industry or self sufficiency, the phosphate ran out and it is now a basket case economy. If we don’t change course it is also Australia’s future.

Globalisation has seen the people of 47 of 50 African countries and much of South and Central America go backwards under free trade and US multi national company thuggery.

That is why desperate people sank the Seattle negotiations with mass protests. That is why the US multinational dominated WTO now meet in isolated centres like Doha.

Oodnadatta should apply for the post Doha meeting with a well organized farmer/manufacturer repeat of the Battle of Little Big Horn to follow. The Custardisation of the Free Trade Custers would make the world in general and Australia in particular, a far better place.

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Have Your say! To join John is an online discussion of the issues he has raised, just leave a comment.

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes;

This is why we need Royal commission into Meat Prices:

Retail Price to Consumer AUD$50 a kilo.

BRISBANE pensioner Ellen McDonald (picture left) was stewing chuck steak yesterday, still shocked that her local butcher was selling premium lamb cutlets for $50 a kilo. Click Here to read that story.

Photo by Darren England - Courier Mail article 23rd of April.

Wholesale Price AUD $6 a kilo.

In the article the Butcher tells that he has paid a wholesaler $6 a kilo for the meat he sells for $50 a kilo. A mark up of $44 a kilo.

Processor Price to Farmer AUD $3 a kilo.

The processor pays the farmer approx $3 a kilo and sells it for $6 a mark up of $3 a kilo. In that the processors has all the costs of killing, storing and delivering the meat to the retailer. The processor would hope to keep perhaps 20 cents a kilo as profit.

The Farmer gets AUD $3 a kilo.

Western Australian Beef cattle producer John Fry of Torridon Grazing has told the ACCC inquiry into grocery prices that he receives less from wholesalers than it costs to operate his feedlot, and warns that the industry may be forced into ruin.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission is conducting hearings on the price of groceries.

Agmate John Carter wrote an article on this just last week. - Supermarket Duopoly Ripping Off Australian Cattle Producers. Click Here to Read that Article

The Australian Beef Association claims that Red Meat Consumers in Australia are paying $3-4 billion a year too much for meat. They have called for a Royal Commission into what consumers pay for meat and what producers are paid. To see that article click here.

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NSW Cattle Producer John Carter (pictured left) summaries his Submission to ACCC Grocery Prices submission.

Armed with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics, UK and Irish figures Athol Economou and I gave evidence for over an hour to the ACCC Inquiry into Grocery Prices.

Our hearing was in Canberra and was chaired by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) Chairman, Graeme Samuels (pictured left). There was a very large media presence and Athol and I did 14 interviews with TV, Radio and print media over the next 24 hours.

Our message was simple–

The US consumer is paying half what the Australian consumer pays and gets a far better (graded) product. The US producer is paid from 25% (Trade steer) to 35% (Feeder steer) more than his Australian counterpart. The Australian consumer and producer are being rorted.

Australia’s meat chain is very inefficient. The Australian consumer is annually paying $4 billion more, and the Australian producer is getting $2 billion less than they would under a similar meat chain to the US one.

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) claims each year that Australian consumers pay more money on beef as justification for our levy.

Producers pay a $5 per head levy to MLA plus huge costs in a quite useless National Livestock Identification System (NLIS). US producers pay a levy of $1 per head and have no NLIS. We are three time losers-our cattle prices have fallen heavily, they use our levy to help supermarkets and others promote beef and then we pay more each year for any beef that we buy at a supermarket!

Not good business.?The Australian beef producer is going out backwards. 30% of farm labour has left since 2002 (National Farmers Federation NFF survey). Average age of cattle producer is over 60. Cattle prices are now where they were 8 years ago and input prices for fuel, fertilizer and fencing costs have doubled and trebled. This is unsustainable.

MLA didn’t do a submission to the Inquiry. NFF did a real featherweight submission. Both are far too close to the supermarkets. MLA staff organize promotion monies, NFF leaders and Supermarket chiefs are very close. We are being sold out -in a huge way.

USDA has done a monthly consumer and producer price for ages. The US producer has received between 43 and 49% of the consumer dollar for the past 8 years. Neither Department of Agriculture Fisheries & Forestry (DAFF) nor MLA does such a figure but our arithmetic shows Australian producers are receiving between 20 and 28% of the consumer dollar.

Going through the meat chain we explained that the main problem lies with the retail ‘mark up’.

There is an agent- duopoly-Landmark and Elders. There are problems for producers with links with Japanese who incur losses in Australia and make huge profits in Japan.

Transporters have fierce competition and small margins. Contrary to what some said at the Inquiry we have smaller distances than the US-Australia’s beef cattle and its population are concentrated along the East Coast whilst the US has cattle all over its country.

There is competition in saleyards. (In US a survey showed 12 cent higher price through saleyard than direct). Australia has cartels- No Stockyard and Packers Act to oversee collusive bidding and also to ensure transparency in price reporting.

Feedlots are a recent and economically doubtful addition. Now operating at fewer than 50% capacity and in a good season with high world grain prices will be lower.

Japanese and their fronts and US companies control a majority of Australia’s feedlot capacity. This may be the reason that Australian feeder steer producers are currently paid LESS than the price of the finished steer whilst the US producer has traditionally been paid around 10% MORE?? A Judicial Inquiry is needed.

Abattoirs are mostly unprofitable. Very few new works have been built since the Public works of 1940-60 period-mostly upgrades. Only one export plant (very badly run) west of a line from Townsville to Adelaide (2/3 of Australia) -there were once 8.

Retail.

US has over 50 large supermarket chains, Australia has two. Massive change in 15 years as Coles / Woolworths duopoly’s move to dominate. The only profitable link in the chain. Huge profits. They control the young cattle market as they purchase over 50% and can keep prices down.

Conclusion.

The Supermarkets and the Japanese are taking a disproportionate share of the consumer dollar and putting at risk the sustainability of the industry. We called for a Royal Commission into the meat industry chain.

In March 1999 I attended a two-day Strategic Planning seminar in Canberra with all the Beef industry heavies. I succeeded (against a lot of opposition) in having an audit of the beef industry as the No 1 priority. Nothing has been done.

Now we see the result of Peak Councils and MLA not knowing what our industry is — The US consumer is paying half what the Australian consumer pays and gets a far better (graded) product. The US producer is paid from 25% (Trade steer) to 35% (Feeder steer) more than his Australian counterpart. The Australian consumer and producer are being rorted.
Thanks a lot.

With friends like our current leaders we don’t need any enemies.

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Do you believe Australia’s Supermarket Duopoly are paying farmers a fair price for beef and other farm produce?

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Based on the Australian experience John spells the reasons why US Livestock Producers should fight Mandatory Livestock Identification “to the last Cowboy”. This article is an extract taken from NSW cattle producer and Australian Beef Association (ABA) member John Carters address to the R-CALF USA annual conference in Omaha Nebraska.

“Australia, being a desert island in the middle of a huge ocean has the least disease of any continent. Despite this, Australia has had Premises ID for cattle since 1980. We used a paper or plastic wrap-around tail tag that had to be affixed before sale. Around 1990, I got individual animal numbers put on those tags for use in producer carcass quality discovery. It was hardly ever used.

(Photo below is left to right, fifth, sixth and seventh generation Australian cattlemen John, Ben and James Carter at work in the Cattle yards at the family property near the nations Capital - Canberra.)

Three years ago I spoke to you in Denver. I advised you not to allow mandatory RFID (radio frequency identification) to be foisted on you because it would be very costly and it wouldn’t work. I am back today to tell you that I was right.

In those three years, Australian cattle producers have been the fall guys for the international tag manufacturers. Follow the money. Put your money on self-interest - you always know that it is trying.

ABA has no problem with voluntary RFID use. If I were unfortunate enough to own a feedlot, I would use it in many ways to save (from) feeding inefficient cattle.

Mandatory tracing is an entirely different matter. We have abandoned our efficient mandatory tail tag system for expensive chaos.

(Below is a photo of the Country where the Carter Family has grazed cattle since 1853)

No other large-producing country has mandated the RFID traceback system.

All the reasons given for its introduction are now in tatters. Face-saving and blame have replaced them. Remember an ounce of prevention is worth pounds of cure. Don’t let anyone take you (US producers) down this suicidal path because once you are on it,

• it will become the unchangeable custom and be used by your packers (meatworks) to discount your cattle.
• Its administration will cost you a fortune -
• all for no purpose but to increase tag-manufacturer profit and give jobs to bureaucrats.

In Australia, the tag manufacturers beat us with lies and propaganda.

They provided letters to the papers signed by producers who didn’t exist amidst a flood of propaganda.

At one stage, the rural press did a poll on NLIS (National Livestock Identification Scheme) acceptance by producers on one of its farm polls on the Internet. On Day Three the poll showed 75 percent of producers voting the NLIS as being hopeless or a failure. About 10 percent were approving. In two hours, this was reversed. Fortunately, ABA had a computer fanatic following the vote and trying to boost the negative vote.

We immediately did a press release stating that the poll was being fixed. It was withdrawn and hasn’t been attempted since. Investigations showed that hackers had the poll alteration from the database team at MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) - our Beef Board. We called for a full disclosure.

MLA spent $81,000 of OUR MONEY on their auditors investigating, refused to release the results, and did not sack the two hackers. One can only presume that someone above had instructed them. A divisional head noted for his careful work resigned and was appointed as Integrity Officer by the packer organisation.

Reasons that tag manufacturers used with their stooges in Government, the packers and our NCBA equivalent.

Their Claim - “Greater Market Access”.

The Reality -In 2003, we were told that we had to have mandatory RFID (NLIS) because the USA was getting it and we would lose market share to the U.S. in Japan and Korea. The U.S., with no RFID (NLIS), is now regaining its market share in Japan and will get back into Korea despite your two cases of BSE (Mad Cow Disease). Australian producers are getting 60 percent of your prices. Brazil and Argentina - with no RFID (NLIS) - send many times Australia’s small 6,000-ton quota to Europe.

Their Claim -”Customers are demanding it”.

The reality - This was a farce, as the system cannot trace beyond the packinghouse (meatworks). Inquiries in Japan showed that no one was asking for it. Our packers claimed that McDonald’s required RFID (NLIS). Knowing the U.S. situation, I rang the McDonald’s purchasing officer in Sydney. She denied ever making such a claim.

Their Claim - “Disease control”.

The reality - The inaccuracy of the system and its slowness has shown that it would be of little use in an outbreak of exotic disease. We are supposed to inform the database of any movement of any cattle off our ranches, including to another pasture. Very few are doing it. NLIS couldn’t track a bleeding elephant through a snowfield.

The minute tag number on the outside (readable with glasses) is different to the computer number inside. See the photo of this pen of my Limousin Angus cross steers below. What hope have you got to see the tag let alone the number.

Australia has been sold inferior tags by the multinationals - they think that we are stupid - I’m afraid that they are right.

(Two weeks ago, I did an audit of my account on the database. In three years, I have bought 900 tags. They are on the database. I have bought 92 cattle - 79 percent are on my account. I have sold 618 (like the pen of my cattle in the photo below) - 74 percent have been taken off the account.)

Their Claim - “Prevention of stock stealing”.

The reality - Australia has decided that RFID (NLIS) is not a legal means of identifying livestock because the tags can be easily cut out and substituted. The recent severe floods in Queensland have seen police and owners rely on the firebrand to identify the thousands of stock on other ranches.

However, enthusiastic bureaucrats are demanding the producers put orange RFID tags in the ears of cattle that they have identified as theirs on other ranches before they take them home. An orange tag indicates that the beast has no whole of life accountability and will be discounted by the packers (meatworks).

Their Claim - “Carcass feedback to producers”.

The reality - Our packinghouses (meatworks) were supposed to supply feedback to the breeder who put his tag in the ear when the beast was sold for the first time. They eventually agreed to give a carcass or a live weight but many are not doing it.

I have had the required carcass weight at abattoir (packer) when killed on 58 percent. I have had fat depths - wildly inaccurate - given on 14 percent. I have had 20 cattle killed on my account that could not have been mine. I have had 22 recorded as deceased on ranch that never died.

The photo below is of one of our carcases that won the Southern NSW Carcass judging last year.

Mandatory Livestock Identification hasn’t worked in any major beef-producing country.

United Kingdom

Their Auditor General’s Report on Livestock Tracking released on Nov. 12, 2003, should be compulsory reading for anyone involved. At that time they had 700 bureaucrats chasing 10 million cattle at an annual cost of $60 per head sold with 20 percent missing. The committee concluded that the system was “in complete chaos”. That is a paper trail system.

The UK lamb RFID trial release (late 2006). They concluded that it would not work as well as the paper trail and would cost the lamb producers so much that they would lose their European markets.

This has caused our sheep equivalent of your NCBA to say ‘NO - not without a cost-benefit analysis‘, which we had unsuccessfully demanded of MLA.

The sheep people don’t seem to like the idea of paying $3 for a tag for a sheep that they may sell for $1. This doesn’t seem unreasonable.

European Union (EU)

Their IDEA trial on RFID had not found RFID to be feasible.

Canada

I phoned the Canadian ID Agency on Monday (Feb. 18, 2008). I was told that their system of informing on stock movement is still voluntary and that few producers send in cattle movements to the agency, as they (the producers) are not computer literate!

This fact was obvious to ‘Blind Freddy’ in Australia and was uncovered in the EU trials. You can have the best computer database system in the world but it is garbage in garbage out.

Monumental Failure.

When we began this war in Australia, I said that there were 200,000 who sold cattle every year. MLA and your NCBA equivalent said that there were only 60,000. We now have 160,000 on the database. We have around 27 million cattle in Australia, and the last figure on the database showed many millions unaccounted for.

I live in one of the better areas with higher stocking rates and a controlled system. I have the equal oldest registered firebrand in Australia (1853). I have tattooed every calf born with that brand since 1955. My experience would be better than most. Linda Hewitt, who addressed you last year and is now in serious floods, with her family runs 15,000 cattle. She has had error notices from the database on thousands of cattle.

(Below is a photo of me in work “clobber” holding our family fire brand and tattoo earmaking pliers that we use to identify our cattle. Brands and earmarks don’t fall off, NLIS tags do.)

We have an international embarrassment on our hands because the tag companies bribed, cajoled and fooled those in power.

Those in power refused to do a cost-benefit analysis; they refused to do a trial. They mandated an impossible system and are now lying very low.

They have had two small inquiries, which produced what they paid for, but with very heavy qualifications on what needed to change to make it work. No senior bureaucrat, politician or NCBA equivalent will stand up and say that it is a success.

They know what any producer who goes into his account knows. It is as the UK Committee said of their system in 2003 - it is ‘in complete chaos’.

Fight this one down to the last cowboy. With 900,000 producers in 50 different state legislatures, your bureaucrats have even less chance of making it work than ours have.

That isn’t the point though - you must stop the transfer of your money to multinational tag manufacturers. Follow the money and don’t be fooled as we were. I think that you will win. Good luck and thank you.”

Have your say! To leave your thoughts / opinion’s or comment for John click on the blue comments link below.

New South Wales cattle Producer John Carter writes:

“I have just returned from a brief visit to the USA where I attended and was a key note speaker at R-CALF USA’s 3 day annual conference held in Omaha Nebraska. I participated and spoke as a representative of the Australian Beef Association (ABA). This is the 1st of a 3 article series on matters of interest to Australian farmers.”

Leading US Cattle Futures Trader Predicts “Boom Times”.

Over three days of the conference I heard some great presentations, but possibly none of more interest to Australian cattle producers than that of respected Cattle Futures trader Charles McVean (pictured below) of McVean Trading Company Memphis Tennessee.

The McVean trading company is a leading US agricultural commodities broker with 75 staff and offices in Tennessee, Alabama, Texas and Iowa.

Mr McVean said “Barring a full collapse of the US economy he sees the shortest cattle supply and the highest real cattle prices since 1973 starting in July this year.”

McVean sees this happening as the US herd is (contrary to the United States Department of Agriculture forecasts) still falling fast due to the droughts and debt.

He doesn’t see a US herd rebuild in sight due to land going to other uses on a huge scale (mainly due to the US Ethanol rebates).

Mr McVean said “We are looking at the most positive outlook for beef prices for 35 years!”

For those of you who don’t know R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is an independent organization that represents cattle producers across 47 states of the USA. The Australian Beef Association is it’s “sister” organization in Australia.

News South Wales Cattle Producer John Carter writes;

“This is the second in the series of articles written after my return from the USA where I attended and was a key note speaker at R-CALF USA’s 3 day annual conference held in Omaha Nebraska. I participated and spoke as a representative of the Australian Beef Association (ABA).”

Free Trade Agreements benefit “Billionaire Thugs” and not ordinary citizens.

Conference Key Note Speaker, Lorri Wallach , Director of the 200,000 strong Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch gave Free Trade the most energetic and fact based demolition that I have ever heard.

Her description of the brainpower of those who negotiated the recent Free Trade Agreements is unprintable.

However to summarize Ms Wallach and her organization believe “the US/Australian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is of no benefit to the ordinary people, but is of huge benefit to multi national chemical companies and other billionaire thugs.”

Ms Wallach contends that the World Trade Authority (WTO) is undemocratic and operates in secrecy, that it is controlled by big business interests who exploit cheap labor abroad and that it has begun to encroach on the rights of countries to protect their environment and restrict imports of unsafe foods and hazardous materials.

However it was the Leadership Townhall meeting following my effort that really impressed me. Sponsored by R-CALF and the Coalition for a Prosperous America, some 300 men and women sat around dinner in the ballroom of the hotel.

An old, dignified Nebraskan Senator spoke of America being brought to its knees and the need for a rebirth. We then listened to seven brilliant speakers address answers to correcting what they believe is the impending US Depression .

Leaders in manufacturing, the trade unions (Union Boss Richard Trumka addressing the conference in the photo below) and farming attacked the de-regulation and free trade policies of the past 20 years.

A man from Paul Revere’s 1801 Revere Copper Products, explained how China was putting them out of business.They could manufacture a Revere silver plated bowl for $20 but China could do it for $14.28, not because of cheaper labor but because of their currency.

Colorado apple farmers are being put out of business by China for the same reason. Free trade just doesn’t work with different currency regimes.

The Union official spoke brilliantly on jobs being lost , health care becoming unaffordable. This was an inspiring coalition.

It was a privilege to be part of a general panel for questions. It was a privilege to be a part of this most inspiring gathering. Photo of me (seated centre) with Judith McGeary of the Farm & ranch Freedom Alliance and R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard answer questions from those at the conference on the Animal ID and Trade Panels.

I wished that anyone with influence in Australia was listening. Here is the policy platform for a new Australian party to take.

This was the heart of America rising against Globalization greed and distortion.

Belatedly Americans are realising that China has outsmarted them. One speaker said “We put the small crooks in yellow suits and send them to gaol and the big ones in pin stripe suits and send them to Washington”.

They see both major parties as multinational stooges. There is a grass-roots mood for change in the USA and these people are serious about getting the de-regulation and Free Trade policy’s of the last 20 years reversed.

New South Wales Cattle Producer John Carter writes:

“This is the third in a series of articles written after my return from the USA where I attended and was a key note speaker at R-CALF USA’s 3 day annual conference held in Omaha Nebraska. I participated and spoke as a representative of the Australian Beef Association (ABA).”

The US Economy Is in Deep Trouble

Radio legend, Derry Brownfield, a friend of ABA’s Christenson family, made a great lunchtime speech at the conference which I think conveys what is happening in the US economy.

In it , he held up a silver 1923 dollar and a paper 2008 one.

He explained that the 1923 dollar is now worth $17 and the 2008 one is worth $1 if he could find someone to pay it. Brownfield believes that the US is now in recession and headed for a repeat of the 1930’s Depression.

(The photo below is of me speaking at the conference. I was there at the invitation of R-CALF USA, the sister organization to ABA, to speak on how our NLIS is performing. Contrary to Australian propaganda of five years ago they don’t have one.)

The US now owes China $1.5 trillion and the Chinese Government is buying huge slices of US private business and public infrastructure.

Debt is seeing the land of free enterprise being socialised by a communist Government in the same way I believe that Australia is being taken by the Singapore Government.

Earlier, on my flight to Dallas, I had read The Economist’s list of indebtedness and interest rates for 43 countries.

The US, Britain, South Africa, Pakistan, Mexico and Australia (in a mineral boom!) are now the basket cases of the developed World.

For nearly six years Australians and Americans have been told that we have a strong economy! The reverse is true.

A TV interview I saw gave me an insight into the depth of the division between rich and poor in the USA. In the interview a big Afro-American female Senator with her white eyeballs gleaming on the screen said ” The Sub Prime Loans are transferring $190 billion from poor and upwardly mobile black people to billionaire bankers and enslaving them for another two generations”.

This made me reflect on something Union speaker Richard Trumka said during his talk at the R-CALF conference “the US average yearly wage was now achieved by the average US CEO in less than one day !”. This is a recipe for revolution.

Barack Obama is capturing a new mood of hope in the US but the American people I meet at the Convention are working for a major change in how Washington treats its electoral masters -the people- as opposed to Wall St and the 92 billionaires in the US.

New South Wales cattle producer John Carter writes:

“This is the fourth in a series of articles written after my return from the USA where I attended and was a key note speaker at R-CALF USA’s 3 day annual conference held in Omaha Nebraska. I participated and spoke as a representative of the Australian Beef Association (ABA).”

Video that Sparked 62million Kg Beef Recall

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was really hammered by speaker after speaker at the conference and they deserved it.

As I waited for my connection in Los Angeles I read the Los Angleles Times and was amazed to read the story of the 62 million kgs of beef recalled due to a Federally inspected Californian abattoir killing downer cattle for the food chain!

The USDA recall is not because of it’s rigorous inspections but instead a video secretly taped by the Humane Society of the United States. The video showed Hallmark/Westland plant workers prodding downer cattle to get them to stand, and moving downer cattle with machinery, such as a forklift.

Click here to see the video that sparked outrage. (Thanks to Agmate Paul Williams for putting us onto this footage. WARNING - Footage shows cows too sick to stand being shoved by forklifts at a slaughterhouse….. Graphic footage … 2/2008)

I later phoned a retired friend who was a USDA employee and in a sad tone he said the the USDA was no longer the independent body admired worldwide for its integrity.

My friend said, “They (sic USDA) are now under the influence of the crooks in Washington.”

Conference delegates were most critical of the USDA reopening of the Canadian border against their own BSE rules. This was easier to understand than was their refusal to allow Independent meat packer Creekstone’s request to be able to test all their beef for BSE (at their own cost) which would have gained them access to lurative Japanese export markets.

Also delegates were furious about the USDA’s delaying of the Mandatory Country of Origin Legislation (MCOOL) for beef that was passed five years ago, but as yet due chiefly to USDA opposition is to be implemented.

My admiration for the independent R-CALF USA lone battle against bureaucracy on behalf of producers has grown enormously.

Agmates Respected Rural Correspondent John Carter in his regular “Straight Talking” comment writes:

A healthy democracy relies on a questioning, vibrant Opposition in its parliament.

Around Australia we are in big trouble with virtually no opposition in Queensland, a deeply divided one in NSW and a shell-shocked remnant of a Coalition searching for something to stand for in Canberra. The Coalition Government was in power too long because of ineffective Opposition through weak ALP leadership -Beazley and an ill Latham.

Political parties are like any other organization, they can’t continue indefinitely without purpose, energy and renewal. They must have a reason to exist”they must provide a need for the public.

Michael Biddulph wrote that the Liberal Party appears in a terminal state and that the next contest would be between Labor and the Greens.

The Liberals most impressive leader, Ted Baillieu in Victoria (pictured), has said that the Party is in its worst state since Menzies formed it in 1940. He is right, the complete and public abandonment of Workplace Agreements by the remnant of the Coalition after their multimillion-dollar advertising of the reform being essential to our economy removed any credibility that they may have had.

A party should stand for ideas not for the result of a poll.

John Howard with his politicized public service and media team took the Liberal Party from Menzies broad church party to a George W Bush Republican big business, global free trade , de-regulation model. He moved Australia to a satellite country of the USA.

Howards Ministers will be condemned by history for their feeble compliance with everything that he said. I know a former Liberal Senator, who rose in the joint party meeting to oppose the invasion of Iraq, was told to sit down by Howard and was booed by the other members. Pathetic. So, unless it alters the Liberal Party stands for big business.

The National Party has much to answer for. Its senior members relished reserved positions for Coalition leaders in Cabinet with all the perks and glory. Ability was irrelevant.

They represented less votes than One Nation (which had no seats in Parliament). Some were involved in the jailing of Pauline Hanson on a trumped up charge. They were preserving their perks but forgetting those whom they claimed to represent. They still don’t know what they stand for.

The 8 ways the Nationals sold the rural sector out during their 11 years in government with the Liberals

1. The sale of Telstra to establish a fund for their own and public service superannuation The Future Fund. Telstra increased its long distance call charges by 20% on the 1st November without protest. As time goes by Telstra will withdraw from The Bush. Thanks a lot.

2. The GST - a tax on the poor that is yielding 3 times what it was meant to.

3. Carbon credits, claiming the farmers stopping clearing as Australia’s emission success but not paying them for their sacrifices or protecting their property rights against assault from ignorant urbanites.

4. The unrepresentative NFF, Cattle Council ,MLA etc to which they directed levies and taxpayer funds in return for political support.

5. In a world of justice their performance with AWB should see the formation of a Coalition ex Minister branch in Goulburn Gaol.

6. On the US Free Trade agreement and its terrible ’side letter’, a hopelessly one-sided deal pushed by the Howard/Bush alliance.

7. Their performance as Ministers for Trade in taking Australia’s foreign debt from $180 to $570 billion in 11 years as they opened our borders to cheap, subsidized agricultural and manufactured products has been appalling.

8. Their WTO talks posturing against intelligent subsidies for farmers as the US and Europe increased them each year was both pathetic and treasonous.

John McEwen’s Country Party knew what it was on about helping farmers with tariff protection and infrastructure development. Jo Bjelke Petersen’s party did the latter. The modern National Party sees not a new dam in their 11 years in office and inland infrastructure falling around our ears.

Doug Anthony (pictured) saw the Party as a party that needed to expand its support and changed its name to the National Party. It became a party without purpose– except hanging on to Cabinet seats. Its membership is said to be plummeting. Their deputy leader in Canberra is not even a member of the party.

I read of a Committee that is analyzing the party’s future. It is chaired by the architect of the lunatic meat structure and other farces. Anyone less likely to find real solutions is hard to imagine.

They need to talk with Bob Katter (pictured) and Barnaby Joyce, thinkers and representatives of grass roots thinking and then do what Minister Tony Burke is doing, travel Australia on the ground, talk to the people in the saleyards, at the silos, in the shops and councils. Their reliance on the advice of Canberra’s NFF/ Business Council of Australia corporate thugs has taken them to a terminal state. Emergency surgery may help but if I were on the drafting race they would go into the palliative care pen.

They must face up to their irrelevance, join with a revamped Liberal Party and accept the fact that future Ministers must be chosen on merit alone. The ALP rightly represents wage earners, we must have a party that looks after self employed and employers.

NSW Beef Producer John Carter in his regular “Straight Talking” Column writes

Over the past 22 months Austalian beef producers have averaged 56% of what US producers are paid for the same feeder steer. US consumers pay less than Australian consumers. We have a production line mess between the feeder steer (cow /calf) producer and the consumer in Australia.We have a leaderless, mindless, rabble muttering ‘ We lead the world” followed by the name of the latest fad –CALM, Fututech, Vioscan, Ausmeat, MSA, NLIS, LPA.