UNCERTAINTY created by the Albanese Government’s introduction of Federal environmental laws over the top of State-based legislation has emerged as the single biggest issue facing grassfed cattle producers over the past 12 months, according to Cattle Australia chief executive Will Evans.
Will Evans talking to Beef Central at the Ekka this morning.
Beef Central caught up with Mr Evans in the cattle ring at the Brisbane Ekka on Thursday morning for an interview to mark his first 12 months in the role since taking the reins of the national producer representative body.
Asked what he saw as the biggest challenges facing grassfed cattle producers in his first year as Cattle Australia CEO, Mr Evans said there were many – from big political issues to challenges in the market to others that directly affect people on the ground.
But one issue, above all, had crossed all three of those categories in the past 12 months, he noted.
“The implementation of changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act has had a direct impact on all three of those areas,” he said.
“We know it’s had a market impact and we know it’s had a huge impact on the way in which people manage their property on a day-to-day basis.”
He said the political way in which the Act was finalised through a deal between Labor Government and the Greens and then quickly came into law meant that a lot of practical considerations had not been considered and had led to a lot of confusion around how to implement it practically.
“We’ve got a brand new Environmental Protection Agency at a national level, that’s never existed before.
“And they’ve now got a very complex piece of legislation where it’s not clear how all Industries will engage with it at a national level across different ecosystems, biosystems, state boundaries.
“This is something that has really complicated the playing field, and even from a regulatory perspective I think they’re not 100 percent sure how they’re going to be interpreting it.
‘in agriculture you need confidence to move forward. Investments don’t pay you back in 12 months’
“And that indecision – in agriculture you need confidence to move forward. Investments don’t pay you back in 12 months.
“So what happens inevitably is people delay and people go ‘right, well I’m not 100 percent sure what this means, I can’t risk this investment and then finding out in two, three, four years that I can’t do what I’m thinking I can do, or maybe I can but it’s expensive, or more expensive than it used to be’.
“So the impact of the EPBC Act on the cattle industry has been very direct.”
He said the States had good regulatory models in place that people routinely interacted with and were familiar with, clearly understanding what they could and could not do.
But now EPBC Act changes had muddied those waters “quite significantly”.
An additional challenge was that the States were also not in a position to be able to advise producers on “well this is what the Federal Act now requires of you”.
“And so I think that level of confusion and uncertainty has been a really unfortunate consequence of the implementation of the legislation.”
Mr Evans said the uncertainty had “taken the icing off the cake” during what otherwise should have been a strong year for the cattle industry, with generally favourable market conditions and seasonal outlooks across much of Australia.
Govt receptive to industry concerns
Asked if he believed the Federal Government understood the level of uncertainty it had created and was receptive to Cattle Australia’s approaches to discussing that, he said there were signs the Government was listening and taking the industry’s concerns seriously.
“They have been really receptive,” he said.
“I think we have a benefit of Minister Watt having previously been the agricultural minister, so at a minimum he’s got good touch-points with the industry and kind of understands who to talk to and how to navigate it, which is a strength in this so far.”
Mr Evans said he doesn’t believe anyone had a clear understanding of how this was going to work when it was implemented.
“It’s such a big piece of legislation and it’s so complex,” he said, noting that public servants were struggling to answer questions about the legislation in Senate Estimates because of the structural deficiencies in the information that they had available to them to be able to make assessments.
“And this has been one of the ongoing challenges in the industry in the last decade, the fact that mapping or utilising satellite mapping to inform a lot of these decisions has got so many deficiencies in it.
“And I think the other thing that the government probably didn’t fully consider, or maybe if they’d been more conscious of it they may have elected to go down a different path, is that the average age of a beef producer in Australia is 64.
“A huge percentage of the industry really only got reliable internet in the last 18 months.
“So when they say, ‘oh well, these are the mapping tools available to you and you should access those and you should use these for your decision-making, it’s like what website is that? You know, we’ve just got Google.
“So the frustration I think is is very fair and really trying to find a way to navigate a pathway here is a priority.
“It’s something that we need to be able to give people surety around because this is directly affecting investment decisions in an industry where not making those investment decisions will have an effect on productivity. So for us, it’s a really high priority to get.”
Structural reform
While describing the EPBC changes as the standout challenge of his first 12 months in the role, Mr Evans also said Cattle Australia had devoted considerable effort to longer-term structural reform work, including the first major review of the cattle transaction levy in two decades.
The organisation is now over halfway through a national series of producer consultation meetings being held as part of the levy review, including a meeting that will be held at the Ekka on Friday morning (details on how to register and where upcoming meetings will be held can be viewed on the Cattle Australia website).
- More to come from Beef Central’s interview with Will Evans on key themes emerging from the levy consultation process, including producer feedback, possible structural reforms and what the review could mean for the future of levy investment and industry representation.
Will is a very impressive beef industry advocate who has wisdom and knowledge beyond his years.