‘A significant risk': Prime Minister Albanese warned not budge on beef import rules during trade negotiations with President Trump

Sky News AU

4 days ago

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is being warned not to cave to US demands on beef imports during upcoming trade negotiations with President Donald Trump.
The Prime Minister is expected to meet with President Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit this week in order to discuss the tariffs imposed on Australian goods earlier this year.
America's 47th President has imposed a massive tariff regime since taking office in January, including a 50 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium and a 10 per cent across the board tax on all Australian imports.
Trump's tariffs are a breach of the existing Australia-US free trade agreement, but White House officials have defended the President's decision by claiming Australia bans the importation of US beef.
A blanket ban on US beef imports - imposed in 2003 - was repealed in 2019, however biosecurity rules remain in place and no American beef has been imported under the new scheme.
Mr Albanese has previously ruled out watering down the rules, but reports indicate government officials have been reviewing the scheme in order to provide the Prime Minister with a bargaining chip.
Speaking to Sky News Australia on Monday, Nationals Leader David Littleproud said weakening Australia's biosecurity regime was 'not something we should entertain', as he called on the Prime Minister to again rule it out.
Mr Littleproud said there were 'strict protocols' around the importation of US beef because Australia needed to ensure the cattle had been 'born in the United States and bred all the way through to their slaughter in the United States'.
'What Anthony Albanese and his departments were (considering)… was a relaxation of beef that was born in Mexico and Canada, where we don't have the traceability that we have over the US production system,' he said.
'Cattle can come into Mexico and then end up in a slaughterhouse in the United States, and then end up in Australia.
'We could be seeing those pests and diseases like mad cow… that's not something that we should entertain.'
'That's why Anthony Albanese needs to rule out straight away that he would open that up to those cattle that were born in Canada, Mexico or anywhere else in the Americas, because that poses a significant risk unless we can trace those cattle.'
The former agriculture minister acknowledged the Prime Minister had previously ruled out weakening the biosecurity rules but that recent reports had called this into question.
'When you see reports from departments saying this is what's on the table in terms of negotiations where there's smokeless fire, and that's why the Prime Minister needs to rule this out,' Mr Littleproud said.
The Nationals Leader said Australia had been 'fair' in its restrictions, which were based on science, and that traceability is also a requirement imposed on Australian beef.
'Every beast here in Australia has an ear tag from the moment they're marked through to the time they go to slaughter. They've got an ear tag that we can trace, what property they've been on, where they are, what they come into contact with,' he said.
'We have traceability in this country, and all we're saying to our foreign competitors is, if you're going to bring a product in this country, we need to know where your animals have been so that we can… protect our environment and our production.'
Cattle Australia boss Chris Parker also backed standing firm on traceability, describing it as a 'pretty simple requirement' and adding that the US had similar requirements for the importation of Australian beef.
"They insist that we provide that level of traceability for our beef going to their country and it's not unreasonable for us to have a requirement where we want to see at least equivalence of traceability so we have a good sense of where this is coming from,' Mr Parker told the ABC.