News

UN meat tax will “close down cattle industry and starve 80 million”: Katter

Guest Author, 03/08/2021

A carbon tax on meat which has been proposed at a United Nations food summit would shut down Australia’s cattle industry and starve 80 million people alone, says Federal MP Bob Katter who represents the sprawling North Queensland electorate of Kennedy.

The True Animal Price Protein Coalition proposed a meat tax of a €1 ($1.61) per kilo, at the summit in Rome last week of which Australia is a major sponsor, having contributed $63.9m.

“Almost every single calf that is born in Australia is produced on land that can’t be used for any other purpose,” Mr Katter said.

“I’m not talking about fattening country; I’m talking about breeding country where the cattle are bred.

“If you introduce that tax and wipe out the cattle industry, then there is 2.4 billion kilos of protein that will no longer be available (Australia on an average year turns off 8 million cattle for consumption, each with 300 kgs of consumable meat).

“The average family of five eats 150 kg of beef a year, so you are going to starve 80 million people to satisfy your ideology.

“There is no alternative feedstock that can provide such an enormously high protein regime.  The staple diets in Indonesia, Europe, Japan, South Korea and South America is meat. You’ve got to eat a lot of rice to get the same protein content that beef provides.”

Mr Katter said the other problem with the meat tax is that much of the Australian landscape will become a wasteland again and will not be used to produce anything.

“The cattlemen are custodians of the land,” he said.

“They love the land, that’s why they live there. It was wasteland, now it’s not – it’s producing food for the rest of the world. Take the cattlemen away and you’ll have what you have with national parks. National parks are feral pig farms, fire-starters and weed nurseries.”

Mr Katter is calling on the Federal Government to assert sovereignty, and to fight the UN proposal.

“We are an independent country and we won’t be ruled by the rest of the world. The ‘do-gooders’ have never been ‘good-doers’,” he said.

“Beef is our eighth biggest export item bringing in $10b a year for Australia.

“The ‘bludgerigar’ class twitter, make a lot of noise, but at the end of the day they’ve got bird brains. The only jungle they’ve seen is concrete jungle. They’re pavement warriors.

“The closure of the beef industry would be a disaster for our economy and the Australian landscape.”

Source: Katter Australia Party

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Comments

  1. Helen, 22/02/2022

    The UN and the vegan agenda, under the guise of saving the environment will cause not only the destruction of animal agriculture but also malnutrition of the masses while doing nothing for the environment. The crops grown for a plant based diet are actually very destructive to the environment when you take into account that the land must be completely cleared from all existing plants and animals, sprayed with herbicides and pesticides and any animal that would eat the crops killed. On the other hand cattle can co exist with other living things and provide nutrients for the soil instead of depleting it.
    https://sustainabledish.com/meat-is-magnificent/

    If meat were taxed, it would have a terrible impact on people’s physical and mental health. Red meat is the most nutritious food with high quality protein, amino acids, B12, iron, zinc and magnesium. The idea that meat is unhealthy is based on faulty and biased studies. Indeed, in many countries millions of people, especially women and children are malnourished and anemic with B12 and other deficiencies due to lack of red meat: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40793128_Meat_Supplementation_Improves_Growth_Cognitive_and_Behavioral_Outcomes_in_Kenyan_Children

    In some countries many children become blind due to vitamin A deficiency which is a fat soluble vitamin found only in animal foods. The lack of red meat and other animal foods are not only harmful to physical health, there are also detrimental effects on mental health. https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/full-article/micronutrients-and-mental-health

    It’s scary that in a wealthy country like Australia, the government will purposely impose malnutrition on it’s people and destroy a great asset like beef farming.

  2. steve craig, 07/08/2021

    This shows exactly why we should exit the very corrupt U.N. and stop funding them immediately. By the way why is it our Govt. is not doing this if they care for Australians.

  3. Ross Young, 05/08/2021

    How are these secretive payments made to these useless organizations such as the UN……. What Australian government signed Australia to such a deal???…… Next election Australians require a referendum on staying in the corrupt UN

  4. Bernie Gannan, 04/08/2021

    Don’t worry, Bob,
    The only mugs likely to be sucked into this are the EU. And Britain is not even a member any more.
    We went EU with our cattle at the outset years ago: We were at the forefront of tailtags, followed by the earliest eartags, and no HGPs.
    The premium soon faded as the EU, looking after its own cattle farmers, slapped on quotas.
    Australia doesn’t need the EU, but beef eating countries want beef.
    To countries who sign up to this proposal, I say, as Marie Antoinette said before the French Revolution :
    “LET THEM EAT CAKE”

  5. Ross, 04/08/2021

    Not often I agree with Bob but I support him on this one. If Scott Morrison does not back our farmers on this issue and the other Socialist issues that seem to the daily diet of the UN. And remains silent on the race and gender politics that is now being taught in our class rooms. And if don’t start to get serous in calling this stuff out they do not deserve my vote and will not get it. Looks building back better is really code for “destroy capitalism and cultures that under pin it by using one world government to enforce socialist ideology”.

  6. Elaine, 04/08/2021

    Bob Katter knows what he is talking about in this area and he is also very passionate about his electorate and Australia as a whole. I can not believe Australia would even consider being bullied into this TAX. We have always stood up for ourselves and we should continue to do so!!!

  7. Peter Dunn, 03/08/2021

    It will be interesting to see what the critics come up with to malign and put down Bob Katter’s comments, but it will be of no real consequence because Bob Katter is right on the money. The so called carbon tax on beef, or for that matter any financial or other environmental imposition on beef, has to be overcome and taken off the agenda. At the very core of the environmental needs relating to climate change is not what needs to be done by Australia, or indeed what needs to be done globally by the beef or any other particular industry. What is the very essence of the need, is what is being done, and equally what is not being done, by the major (developing Asian nation) emitter.

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