Brisbane 8 May 2013. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, John McVeigh will travel to Indonesia this Sunday to start rebuilding Queensland’s live cattle trade relationship with Indonesia.
Mr McVeigh said Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig and his Labor colleagues have given up on our Live Cattle trade and that was evident at yesterday’s Beef Crisis Summit in Richmond yesterday which he attended.
“Joe Ludwig was non-committal and showed very little interest in trying to fix the problem he created after he put a ban on the live cattle trade in 2011,” Mr McVeigh said.
“I can’t sit back and let our live cattle trade just vanish, and watch our North West cattle producers go to the wall.
“That’s why I am determined to rebuild the relationship with Indonesia and get more live cattle into what was a major market for cattle producers.”
Minister McVeigh will travel with his Northern Territory counterpart Minister for Agriculture Willem Westra van Holthe to meet with the key Indonesian Ministers and trade officials and tour a local feedlot, abattoir, wet market and supermarket.
“We are both looking forward to meeting with the Indonesian Minister for Agriculture Suswono and Minister for Trade Irawan Wirjawan,” Mr McVeigh said.
“We want a close working relationship with the Indonesian Government and want to increase the import quota to what was in 2008 which was around 700,000 live cattle.
“This trip is about rebuilding the relationship which was badly damaged by Joe Ludwig and we need to start that now.”
