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Undercutting Aussie Farmers for US Beef

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I asked the department about its decision to allow US beef imports and why so much of the process is hidden behind redactions.

From what I understand, in 2017, the department reviewed biosecurity risks for cattle continuously resident in the applicant country since birth. Then, in 2019, it approved imports of cattle born, raised, and slaughtered in the US. however in 2020, the US asked for something new: permission to export cattle that had been imported from other countries into the US. To justify this, the department commissioned two addendums to the original review.

One addendum was released publicly. The other? Completely hidden.

I asked for its title and a copy. The department refused, saying that I’d have to pursue review options on the FOI. What are they hiding?

Here’s the bigger issue: Australia is extremely efficient at producing beef. The only way US beef becomes cheap enough to compete here is if they import cheaper cattle from countries like Mexico, slaughter them in the US, and then export the meat to Australia. If we only allowed beef born, raised, and slaughtered in the US, they couldn’t compete. Now, by allowing Mexican cattle through the back door, we risk undercutting Australian farmers.

The department insists price isn’t part of their biosecurity assessment and that they only look at disease risk. Yet that’s exactly the problem. We’re ignoring the commercial reality that this opens the door to cheaper imports while relying on foreign assurances for safety.

Strong biosecurity is important, however Australians deserve transparency — not redacted documents and blind trust in foreign systems.

Transcript

ACTING CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for being here again. First of all, I’d like to discuss the decision to allow US beef imports. I’m going to go to freedom of information LEX 34322 for some of this information, which you charged me $600 for and heavily redacted. Thanks for that! I’ll go through my understanding. Pull me up if there needs to be a correction, please. The work the department did in their 2017 review strictly assessed risks from cattle continuously resident in the applicant country since birth. Then a 2019 assessment following on from that review approved the export to Australia of cattle that had been born, raised and slaughtered in the United States. Then, in 2020, the US asked for cattle imported from other countries into the US to be allowed to be imported to Australia via the US. The department then commissioned two addendums to the review. Is that correct?  

Dr Smith: From what I could hear, that sounded correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay. So we have a 2017 review, a 2019 approval for US born cattle, then a 2020 request to allow cattle not born in the US and some additional addendums made to the 2017 review to justify that request. Correct?  

Dr Smith: Yes, the original 2017 review was for a number of applicant countries, not just for the US, but that was specifically born, raised and slaughtered in the US. The addendum was to allow for cattle born and raised in Canada and cattle born and raised in Mexico imported into the US, slaughtered and then brought to Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you made two addendums to the 2017 review. One was called Final report: risk of lumpy skin disease via fresh bovine skeletal muscle meat from applicant countries, but you redacted the name of the second addendum. Why are you hiding it, and what was the second addendum titled?  

Dr Smith: I understand ..that was part of an FOI process and that the decision-maker has recently provided that decision and the reasons for doing so, which you’ve received. I think you’ve also been provided your options for a review, and, if any of those need to be taken further, then you have those avenues to do so.  

Senator ROBERTS: You’re saying not only that I can’t get the list of the second addendum but that I can’t get the whole addendum from you?  

Dr Smith: I wasn’t the decision-maker on that FOI. I can say that there was an addendum which I referred to in relation to the expanded access. We did do some additional work around the safety of LSD, lumpy skin disease, in skeletal muscle as a separate process. That was also released publicly and deemed that LSD can be safely managed in skeletal muscle imports. 

 Senator ROBERTS: What I’m asking for is a copy of the second addendum.  

Dr Smith: As I mentioned before, I wasn’t the decision-maker in that process. If there is a question around what was provided back to you from the decision-maker, who was an officer in the department, then you have the right to review that decision.  

Senator ROBERTS: I have the right as a senator to get a document that I request in Senate estimates.  

Ms Saunders: We’ll take that on notice. We don’t have the documents available at this point in time. We’ll have to consider whether we would seek public interest immunity in relation to those documents.  

Senator ROBERTS: I was going to mention that. If you disagree, you’ll have to seek PII.  

Ms Saunders: Indeed.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m just wondering what you’re keeping from the Senate. The core change, as far as I can see, is that Mexico have said they will certify that Mexican cattle were born and raised in Mexico. That’s to stop, apparently, the risk of cattle being brought up from Central American or South American countries, where lumpy skin or mad cow disease is present, into Mexico and then into the United States and exported to Australia. Mexico is considered some to be a narco-terrorist state. Even if you disagree with that assessment, they clearly have a higher risk of corruption and a financial incentive to lie about these certificates. Why are we changing our entire biosecurity tolerances because of assurances Mexico has given not even to us but to another country? They’ve given those assurances to the United States not to us.  

Dr Smith: There were a couple of processes of assessment. FSANZ, the Food Safety Australia New Zealand, did their own independent assessment of Mexico as a country. They also assessed US as a country and Canada as a country. They assessed that their systems, their controls, the ways they managed the BSE risk, which is the mad cow risk, was at the lowest category—category 1—noting that Mexico’s never had a reported case of BSE and that the last case of FMD in Mexico was in 1952.  

Senator ROBERTS: Who did that assessment of the risk with Mexican imports?  

Dr Smith: That assessment that I referred to was FSANZ, the statutory authority under the department of health. That’s publicly available.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’ve reviewed Mexican beef. What about Central American or South American beef?  

Dr Smith: We reviewed the importation of eligible cattle from Mexican supply chains, subject to the protocols that we strengthened with the USDA, to ensure that those cattle—live cattle, not beef—that were brought into the US supply chain could be traced back to their property of origin and that they were sourced from TB-free and other disease-free herds. They’ve tested as such, noting that, as I said in evidence earlier, 1.2 million cattle legally come into the US, and have done for decades, and then they become integrated as part of the herd. We’ve not seen any outbreaks of disease or issues in human health or, particularly, beef exports from the US that have resulted in disease.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you’re telling me that you have got assurance that cattle from Mexico going to the United States meet your standards. What about cattle that go from South America or Central America into Mexico and then to the United States?  

Dr Smith: We’re not assessing beyond Mexico; we’re only assessing those that have been brought into the US from Mexico. But the FSANZ assessment did look at Mexico as a country in and of itself, and they believed that they had the adequate controls to manage, in this case, the BSE risk. We’ve also done a lot of work with the USDA as well to make sure that they have confidence in the system because they need to protect their domestic herd, which is incredibly important for their own domestic consumption. Noting, too, that we import a lot of genetic material from the US, which relies on the same traceability of straws of semen and embryos into Australia—which we’ve been doing for decades—and we’ve never had any cases of diseases as a result.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you’re relying on the United States to protect itself from South American and Central American beef?  

Dr Smith: We’re relying on the fact that we did a systems audit of the US system, which we’ve relied upon for many years for importation of a number of commodities into Australia, that it has been done safely.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’re very efficient with our beef production in Australia. The only way importing US beef gets cheap enough for them to compete with our growers here, is if they’re allowed to import cheaper cattle from other countries, slaughter them in the United States and export them to Australia. It’s true, isn’t it, that if we only allowed beef born, raised and slaughtered in the US, they just wouldn’t be able to compete—yet now we’re allowing countries like Mexico through the back door to undercut Australian farmers. Is that correct? 

 Dr Smith: I wouldn’t characterise it as that. The cattle that they bring are specific for their needs. They are bringing them into the supply chain mostly as feeder cattle—so steers and spayed heifers—that then get brought into their feedlots. They are fattened up and, essentially, they are then treated as US cattle and they would enter our supply chain for market access to us, subject to the raft of conditions that we put in place. Senator ROBERTS: So you’re confident that Mexican cattle coming into the United States, slaughtered in the United States, is not a way for the Americans to undercut our prices in Australia?  

Dr Smith: Our biosecurity assessment doesn’t look at price or competitiveness per se. I note that the price of US beef is quite high at the moment, I’m aware of that, but that is not part of our considerations as part of a biosecurity assessment. We’re not able to look at price comparators or impacts on domestic industries as part of our SPS agreement under the WTO.  

Senator ROBERTS: I appreciate your direct answers. So we’re potentially exposed to cheaper Mexican cattle coming into the United States and undercutting us in Australia?  

Senator Chisholm: I don’t think that’s accurate.  

Senator ROBERTS: How do you know that’s not correct?  

Senator Chisholm: Because I don’t think you’ve been able to point to evidence that that’s the case.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking if that is a possibility.  

Senator Chisholm: There is no evidence that—  

Senator ROBERTS: What we’re being told is that only the biosecurity risks are taken into consideration.  

Senator Chisholm: I understand that, but there is no evidence that what you’re suggesting is the case.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not saying that there is evidence. I want to know—  

Senator Chisholm: Then you shouldn’t put something like that.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking the question if there is a way of doing that.  

Senator Chisholm: There is no evidence to support that.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not saying that. I have got the evidence. I’m asking if that’s a way—I have learnt that it is not a consideration; it’s just biosecurity. That is still an open-ended—  

Senator Chisholm: And I’m saying that there is no evidence to support that.  

Senator ROBERTS: We’re just going around the merry-go-round.  

Dr Smith: Senator, maybe I can help. Commercial matters, as far as what consumers will import, are a matter for commercial operators. If there is a viable commercial market that they can bring product in that meets our requirements under biosecurity, then they are able to do so.  

Senator ROBERTS: And if there’s a problem with it, if it’s undercutting Australian beef, then it’s up to our beef growers to draw that to whose attention?  

Dr Smith: Yes; but I think it’s unlikely that that’s going to be the case. 

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Is there an mRNA Vaccine for Australian Cattle?

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I have many constituents email me their concerns about mRNA vaccines for cattle.

In the recent Senate Estimates I shared their concerns with Meat and Livestock Australia, who are project managing the development of mRNA vaccines for cattle in Australia.

I asked them about the project and MLA responded saying that mRNA vaccines for cattle are in the early stages of development in Canada, but not Australia.

They do not know if they will work and if they can be used without altering the health or the genetics of the animal. These are the things the MLA are watching out for.

If an mRNA vaccine is developed, then the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicine Authority will have to put the vaccine through its own safety testing before approval.

I can also add that the stories on the internet about death of cattle after mRNA vaccines are wrong. The video being used is from other incidents, including the use of poison feed.

mRNA vaccines are not in use in cattle in Australia, and as far as I am aware, anywhere in the western world.

Although we don’t need to worry immediately about these gene shots in our cattle, we will keep an eye on how this unfolds overseas.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing tonight. I refer to questions on notice dated 28 February 2023.  Question SQ23-0002000 is going to be distributed. It is from February estimates regarding the development of mRNA vaccines. A copy will be coming. Do you agree with this answer as it was written at the time?

Mr Strong: This is a question to us and an answer we provided?

Senator Roberts: I’m not sure if you were in the room at the time. Maybe Mr Metcalfe took it.

Mr Metcalfe: Sorry, Senator. I wasn’t paying attention.

Senator Roberts: That’s alright. You undertook to take this question on notice for people who weren’t in the room. I think you did it for two or three groups last time.

Mr Strong: The highlighted piece that you are asking about on this first one?

Senator Roberts: Yes. Do you agree with this answer as it was written at the time? Has anything changed since then?

Chair: Which one are we on, Senator Roberts?

Senator Roberts: It is SQ23-000200.

Mr Metcalfe: I think MLA is being asked whether there is any update to the reference to 200, Jason. I think we are being asked about 128. Senator, I will undertake to see whether there is any update to 128. I don’t have the relevant staff here because they’ve all gone home. I am not sure whether MLA can assist you in relation to the question.

Mr Strong: Yes is the short answer, Senator. We would still agree with the answer that has been provided here. It is a research project that is still going through the research process now.

Senator Roberts: You are involved?

Mr Strong: Correct.

Senator Roberts: In supporting the development of mRNA vaccines for cattle? It’s under development at the moment, but it hasn’t been approved?

Mr Strong: So involved. I’m absolutely not trying to be cute. We are involved in the research to look at the potential use and development of mRNA vaccines. There is not the commercial use of an mRNA vaccine for a veterinary purpose at this stage.

Senator Roberts: That’s right.

Mr Strong: This research project is looking at that. Can it be done? Can it be done in a safe way? Can it be done in a way that produces a vaccine that provides a level of efficacy we need? Can it be done in a commercial way?

Senator Roberts: I think the third criteria you had was that it doesn’t contaminate the food.

Mr Strong: Of course. And it has to be commercial.

Senator Roberts: I want to unpick the whole third paragraph. Firstly, this answer indicates that a lumpy skin vaccine will undergo testing in Canada. Is it still being tested in Canada and not Australia?

Mr Strong: The research is being conducted in Canada to develop the mRNA type vaccine. For any vaccine to be approved here, it would have to go through an approval and testing process here. But the research is being done in Canada. We probably could have been clearer in the way that was written.

Senator Roberts: The TGA, which did not do live patient testing in this country, relied on the FDA. The FDA in turn did not do any testing; it relied on Pfizer. Unlike them, you will do thorough testing?

Mr Strong: We’re very confident of the standards in place and the requirements we have to comply with for veterinary medicines in Australia. We will absolutely comply with them. I think we all have a level of concern and confusion in this space from what we have seen and heard in the last few years. Luckily, in Australia, we have a very sound and detailed approval process. Absolutely we will make sure any research we do in this space is connected to that process.

Senator Roberts: I would like to get into that. The TGA admitted, in answering my questions at the last Senate estimates, that they did not do testing with live patients. They relied upon data from the FDA in America. The FDA also admitted that they didn’t do live testing. They relied upon data from Pfizer, the producers. Do our testing requirements require proper testing in this country?

Mr Strong: Yes, they do. I think there are some big differences between what we all experienced over that two or three-year period and what we are doing here. The main one is that we have more time and human lives aren’t at risk. If we don’t get positive results out of the tests with the research that is being done on these mRNA vaccines, we can stop. If there are different paths we have to take, we can do that. If we need to take more time, we can do that. I think the two examples are sufficiently different that we can have confidence that we will be able to stick to a very disciplined research and development and then testing, pre-approval and approval process for any potential new vaccine.

Senator Roberts: It is good to know that the mRNA technology is still new. It hasn’t been tested properly in humans at all. What makes you confident that your test will pick up any problems in cattle?

Mr Strong: Nothing is the short answer to start with. The follow-on from that is that it is exactly what you just said; it is new technology. A very important part of this research is to learn about that. If it has the utility that we think it should have and the ability to manufacture the type of vaccine which is actually safer for animals and easier to use and more effective, it provides a fantastic potential opportunity and we absolutely should explore that. But we absolutely have to do that in a way that protects the safety of the animals and the food chain and, obviously, the consumers.

Senator Roberts: Because the reputation of mRNA now has been tarnished well and truly. People will be wary about eating something that has mRNA in it and eating that meat.

Mr Strong: We will be very conscious of those consumer and community views in the space.

Senator Roberts: Will the meat be labelled?

Mr Strong: I don’t know the labelling requirements for what would happen with an animal that has been vaccinated. Like I said, that hasn’t existed previously. Labelling requirements is something that absolutely would be part of the approval process. Of course we would rely on the Australian authorities to make those rulings.

Mr Beckett: It is a bit early in the consideration. Those things will all be dressed.

Senator Roberts: What is that, Mr Beckett?

Mr Beckett: I said it is early in the consideration of the whole research. Those things will certainly be considered in the process.

Senator Roberts: Overseas experts with regard to the COVID injections for humans say this new technology should have had 15 years of testing, not 15 months or nine months, and not rely just on Pfizer itself. Now we are finding out that the efficacy is negative for these injections. It doesn’t stop transmission. The authorities have acknowledged that. It needs to be very well tested over an extended period with cattle to make sure there is efficacy and to make sure it is safe and it is safe for humans. The mRNA vaccine for foot and mouth is also being tested in Australia, though, isn’t it?

Mr Strong: No. Not yet.

Senator Roberts: No, sorry. It will be tested in Australia. The testing will be in Australia at the Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute located in the middle of a large dairy production area in Menangle. Is that right?

Mr Strong: No. Not necessarily. Before anything can come into Australia, it has to go through a very controlled and specific quarantine process. Nothing would actually be brought in and tested or released without appropriate controls.

Mr Metcalfe: Our department has to approve the import of such a virus. We would give extremely careful consideration to any application such as that for obvious reasons.

Senator Roberts: You would have to bring foot and mouth virus in?

Mr Metcalfe: Absolutely. We would probably need the chief veterinary officer and others to provide evidence to you about the management of that issue.

Senator Roberts: They are up next, I think.

Mr Metcalfe: No. I am only here because I am supporting the minister. The department is formally no longer here.

Senator Roberts: Will you be involved in that test, MLA?

Mr Strong: It’s too early to say. The research that we’re investing in is whether it is possible to produce vaccines using mRNA technology that would allow the treatment of diseases such as lumpy skin disease and foot-and-mouth disease. That is the research.

Senator Roberts: So it’s very early days?

Mr Strong: Very early days, absolutely, yes.

Senator Roberts: Are you aware that the testing on mRNA vaccines for lumpy skin disease and foot-and-mouth disease includes ensuring that the vaccine does not alter the DNA of the animal, thereby destroying generations of genetics? Australian farmers, whether dairy or beef, should be very proud of the genetics they’ve developed over the years. We don’t want the genes altered.

Mr Strong: Absolutely we don’t. Again, it’s too early in the process. I am sure those things will be part of the consideration if there’s any potential risk from that.

Senator Roberts: The answer to question SQ23-000128 precludes the precautionary use of an mRNA vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease or lumpy skin disease as it would remove our status as being disease free. Can you reassure the committee that this is still the position of Meat and Livestock Australia?

Mr Strong: I don’t think that was our position in that question. Wasn’t that a department question? Isn’t that what you were saying?

Mr Metcalfe: That was actually advice from the department to you, Senator. I have indicated that we’re happy to update. If there are any changes, we’re happy to update it. It was only provided a couple of months ago. I would be surprised if there is anything to update.

Senator Roberts: If you could just let us know.

Mr Metcalfe: We’ve taken that on notice already.

Senator Roberts: Let us know if it remains constant or if it has changed.

Mr Metcalfe: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you very much.

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