I have been involved in the meat game in varying capacities since I landed on this earth with my folks being Sheep and Cattle Graziers and many other members of the family being butchers. Like many Farmers I reckoned someone was making a heck of a lot of money out of the protein industry and it wasn't the producers so I went and set up a paddock to plate business. I could do everything except the slaughtering which is heavily controlled by government legislation. One thing that shocked me when I set up my multi-layered enterprise was the cost of slaughtering. It was and still is very low. It is volume that allows abattoirs to make a dollar. However with that volume comes a lot of issues. Namely the number one input which is labour. The labour market in the meat industry locally is very highly regulated and highly unionised. 

Much has been said of late about the export of live animals from Australia to abbattoirs in Islamic countries where ethical treatment of animals is much different to that of Australia. However in these countries their labour market is totally different to that of Australia and the effect being that it is infinantly cheaper to slaughter livestock in these and other countries than in Australia due to the high costs of labour and incredible regulation on the meat industry locally.

Speaking with friends this week I have again been absolutely bewildered by the continued decimation of the the Meat industry in this country, with most of the abattoirs in my region closed over the period since I left the meat game in October 2009. The Goondiwindi Abattoir, The Pitsworth Abattoir, The Killarney Abattoir, the massive Beef City Abattoir in Toowoomba all have closed their doors this all in the small region surrounding my property. One of the great shining lights of the industry the Freestone Group a well run outfit of the Bryce family has gone in to voluntary administration as has another mates family abattoir at Oberon which was the main supplier of goat meat to the Sydney Metro Area. Even the once successful business that grew out of the one which I handed to my sister and her husband has gone into administration.

All these closures are due to many factors however the overwhelming factor just simply being inability to run a profitable show. The increases in livestock prices have been a hit to the bottom line however without question the real killer to these businesses have been the high cost of labour and government regulation.

Any other industry facing such incredible losses of its participants would be front page news and of incredible alarm to a democratic government with a desire to ensure its population has a secure food supply. Not here. Why is that?

The typical response from so many after the explosion in anti-live-export sentiment across the nation was, lets just slaughter all livestock here and therefore increase the dollars we keep by employing Australian slaughterers.....yeah great idea....but oddly all that is occurring is the slaughter houses here are closing.

Makes you wonder....why is the Australian Meat Processing Industry systematically being destroyed from with in. The simple fact is the cost of business has risen beyond the abilities of most abattoirs I know of and this has all been under the direction of government policy.

Around the same time that Australia was  in consideration for settlement from Britain a Scotsman wrote about the invisable hand of supply and demand. Will it be that same hand which will put the control of the meat industry firmly in the control of multinationals who seem hell bent on owning the western worlds food supply, and the ability to set prices free of competition?