Govt action on dumping of beef urged

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 21

Govt action on dumping of beef urged

NZPA-AAP Canberra The Australian Government should immediately move to ensure that the European Economic Community’s increasing beef stockpile does not become a threat to Australian beef exports, the Opposition has claimed. The shadow Trade Minister, Mr Ralph Hunt, said that the E.E.C.’s beef stockpile now exceeded 400,000 tonnes and the heavily subsidised beef could be dumped on to Australia’s Asian-Pacific markets. “Every effort must be

made to shore up hard-won markets, and the Government must also draw up a plan for retaliatory action under the terms of G.A.T.T. should the E.E.C. attempt to dump its surplus stocks at Australia’s expense,” he said. The E.E.C.’s 400,000-tonne beef stockpile was a serious threat to Australia’s export industry, which now supplied 190,000 tonnes, or 67 per cent, of the entire beef and veal demand in the Asian-Pacific region, he said.

“The problem is immediate, and potentially devastating to the Australian industry,” Mr Hunt said. If the E.E.C. went ahead with its dumping process on top of Australia’s loss of the Singapore market and a smaller share of the Japanese market, the Australian cattle industry would face a “price crisis” within two or three years. “The Australian beef industry has undergone an enormous adjustment process since the late 19705, with the cattle population dropping from 34 million to about two-thirds of that figure,” Mr Hunt said. “Australian producers have ‘bitten the bullet of rationalisation’ and they will not appreciate the E.E.C. attempting to offload onto themselves some of the cost of its failure to do likewise.”