Interview - Leon Byner, 5AA
Subject: Beef imports
Transcript
21 January 2010
LEON BYNER: Simon Crean, good morning.
SIMON CREAN: Hello Leon, how are you?
LEON BYNER: Happy New Year.
SIMON CREAN: Happy New Year to you.
LEON BYNER: Is it a fait accompli - can you say as Trade Minister that we will definitely be allowing meat from mad cow countries into Australia?
SIMON CREAN: We will ensure the rigorous assurance process over there, that diseased source does not come into Australia.
LEON BYNER: How do you do that?
SIMON CREAN: By ensuring the rigorous assessment over there, but that's a different argument than…
LEON BYNER: Over where?
SIMON CREAN: …well, from the source country, wherever it comes from, whether it's the US or the UK.
LEON BYNER: Yeah, but hang on. Now in Japan - and I've got some information given to me today by federal - the state president of the AMA Andrew Lavender. He says that in Japan for example, every carcass is checked.
SIMON CREAN: Yes.
LEON BYNER: In America it's a lot more open and they don't do a lot of testing and they don't really want to discover mad cow meat. So if we are relying on other countries to test before they send it here and they get it wrong, we've got a major problem on our hands.
SIMON CREAN: No, because we'll be insisting, according to our standards, that it is so tested Leon.
LEON BYNER: But our standards are so far since 2002 that we don't allow it in.
SIMON CREAN: That's correct and that's a standard that is out of keeping with anywhere else in the world. Now that causes two - one major problem Leon.
LEON BYNER: Yep.
SIMON CREAN: If in fact there is an outbreak here in Australia - and that can happen regardless of whether you've got this in place - if for example there was an outbreak in Tasmania, beef in the whole of Australia would have to be withdrawn from the shelves. Under these new regimes we can isolate the closure or the recall to the area in which it happened. That's why…
LEON BYNER: There is...
SIMON CREAN: No, can I just make this point?
LEON BYNER: Sure.
SIMON CREAN: Because this is the question of the threat to the herd and the beef industry, I'll come to the public health argument in a minute, but this is the threat to the beef herd. This is the reason the beef industry overwhelmingly came to us and said we need to change the policy because if in fact there's an outbreak we will have to take all the beef off all the shelves in Australia and imagine what that would do, Leon, to our reputation overseas?
LEON BYNER: Why couldn't we take it off the shelf and still keep the ban in place?
SIMON CREAN: Because the standard that we apply to the rest of the world - in other words, if there's an outbreak in one part of the States, we don't take any from any of the states, in any of the US. In other words if there was an outbreak in one state, under this regime it will be isolated to that state, not to all of the United States. Because we apply that standard, before this change, to them, we have to apply the same standard to ourselves, that's the international rules.
LEON BYNER: Let me ask you this. If you lived in the UK…
SIMON CREAN: Hmm.
LEON BYNER: …in either the '80s or the '90s, you are not allowed to give blood because you may have been exposed to mad cow disease even if you didn't think you were.
SIMON CREAN: Yes.
LEON BYNER: This is new change Simon is going to have an impact on that.
SIMON CREAN: Well, and the reality though Leon and it's interesting that you mentioned the '80s or '90s because that was the case back in the '80s and '90s. But the - part of the reason for this change is the science has moved on significantly from the '80s and '90s. And let me just tell you what the Chief Medical Officer said, I hear what you say about the AMA, but this is what the Chief Medical Officer, Jim Bishop said, said the change - the expert that reviewed this has said that it is negligible risk because the science has moved on and the risk is something like 40 million times less than risk from motorcar accidents.
LEON BYNER: Yeah I got to tell you, the motorcar accident scenario doesn't really cut a lot of ice…
SIMON CREAN: But the risk is negligible. How else do you say it?
LEON BYNER: But hang on, motorcar accidents and a pathogen like mad cow are totally different things.
SIMON CREAN: But the science has moved on. And that's the why the Chief Medical Officer... see, there are two risks here involved, Leon. One is the risk to public health; the other is the risk to the industry.
LEON BYNER: My question to you is this. I do know because I've spoken to Tony Burke about this, that there was no plan, only short months ago, that at the time you were going to make the change that you're going to label meat so that if consumers decide to make an informed choice as to not to purchase meat from places where mad cow might have been present they won't have that ability because there's no labelling.
SIMON CREAN: Well let me come to this point, I'll come to the labelling question in a minute but let's just go to the basics first. Do you really think that Australians who love Australian beef - and so does the rest of the world by the way, it's the reason why one-third only of what we produce is consumed here, two-thirds is exported and our challenge is to get more of it exported - do you really think Australians are going to, as a result of this change, switch their, change preferences? Of course they're not. We've got to have…
LEON BYNER: Well hang on a minute…
SIMON CREAN: No, no, we've got to have confidence in our own industry. Confidence in our own product.
LEON BYNER: Simon. Simon. That's not really an argument and I'll tell you why: because people like to know where stuff is from and what's in it.
SIMON CREAN: Okay so…
LEON BYNER: And so if you - and see at the moment meat labelling is not in fact mandatory. So you see what can happen is people or supermarkets or whoever can bring in meat from any place and sell it off as Australian where in fact, one, it may be not be, two, it might have come from a place where mad cow may or may not have been present. Now, okay, even if we accepted all your arguments and the arguments of Mr Bishop, the fact is the consumer still has a right to choose. And I would have thought the minimum you could do, the minimum, would be to ensure that if the consumer says I don't want to buy that meat, I'll buy something else, I'll buy the local product.
SIMON CREAN: Okay, I don't disagree with you. So what I'm saying to you, I'll come to the labelling question. We do have very robust labelling laws but that's the other reason that we've set up a review into labelling and the question as to whether we need to strengthen those laws. That review is being undertaken as we speak.
LEON BYNER: Yes, but Simon, your Parliamentary Secretary to the Health Minster was on this program before Christmas referring to the labelling laws as, quoting him: "a joke".
SIMON CREAN: Well, I'm not aware of that, but the review itself is underway…
LEON BYNER: Yes but can you, can you guarantee Simon that at the time you are going to allow or change our quarantine rules that at the very same time consumers will be told in terms of meat purchases what's in it, where it's from?
SIMON CREAN: I can guarantee that we will ensure that we have robust and strong labelling laws.
LEON BYNER: When?
SIMON CREAN: As a result of this review.
LEON BYNER: Yes, but hang on, surely you've got to be certain that you work these things in tandem. If you're going to change the rules and allow beef in or meat from other places where there may or may not have been mad cow and the consumer wants to make the choice not to purchase that meat, that is their right and it should be the right at the same time as you bring in these rules.
SIMON CREAN: And that's why we've got the two reviews going concurrently.
LEON BYNER: But can you guarantee that the review and the laws will change at the time you change the rules?
SIMON CREAN: Well it's up to the outcomes of both of the reviews Leon. That's the point I'm making. I mean, get your AMA person to turn up to the Senate inquiry.
LEON BYNER: He's going to.
SIMON CREAN: Well, that's good.
LEON BYNER: Well my question is this, if you've already decided you want to do this, why have the inquiry? If the inquiry…
SIMON CREAN: Because we believe we've conducted the investigation, we've consulted the industry, we've consulted the health experts, we believe this stands up, we will go through the process of the Senate inquiry, that's the right in a democracy to have one but we believe that the decision will stand.
LEON BYNER: Simon, thanks for joining us.
SIMON CREAN: My pleasure, Leon.
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