AMIC CEO Tim Ryan. Image – AMIC.

AUSTRALIAN meat processors have called for an urgent review of export fees and charges following today’s widely-condemned Australia-EU Free Trade Agreement outcome.

Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive officer Tim Ryan said the FTA outcome was a kick in the guts to the Australian red meat industry.

“The meat industry has worked tirelessly and been very clear with the Australian Government about the importance of a meaningful outcome in an agreement with the European Union.

“This outcome is worse than those achieved by Australia’s competitors, and it caps and restricts Australia’s trade,” he said.

“When it comes to red meat, the final package locks in and solidifies the long-standing access imbalance faced by Australian exporters to the EU.

“We have been clear that this agreement represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset red meat access to the EU in a way that would shape trade for decades to come,” Mr Ryan said.

“An FTA should promote trade, not constrain it. This outcome does not reflect the contribution of the red meat sector to Australia’s economy or export profile.”

AMIC had called for an independent review of the expenses driving proposed export fee increases, but in light of the poor EU FTA outcome and significant losses to market access for Australian meat, the council is urgently calling on the government to review its regulatory impact and the proposed significant increases in cost recovery fees and charges.

Mr Ryan said the disappointing FTA outcome adds to a material deterioration in market access for Australian red meat over the last eighteen months in established and emerging markets.

This includes the loss of around a billion dollars in beef trade to China (Australia’s second largest beef market) under the China’s global safeguard measure; critical trade to Indonesia heavily restricted for beef and effectively banned for sheep meat under punitive Indonesian import licensing arrangements; emerging barriers to trade arising for our vital trade to the US and India, and significant shipping, logistics and supply chain disruptions associated with the war in the Middle East.

“The EU FTA outcome is particularly hard to swallow in the context of the sustained loss of access and significant emerging barriers to Australian red meat’s trade to global markets.

“The agreement locks in a comparative disadvantage at a time the Government is losing, rather than gaining, access to overseas markets that are critical to the long-term sustainability of the red meat industry.”

Government walking away from market access – AMIC

Mr Ryan said the announcement comes at a time when the Australian Government has proposed to significantly increase taxes on meat exports despite major losses in market access and significant global trade headwinds.

This announcement also comes in the middle of the implementation of revised cost recovery arrangements pushed out by the Albanese Government which has demonstrated the government is walking away from agricultural market access and productivity.

AMIC has previously raised its serious concerns with the proposals outlined in the draft Cost Recovery Implementation Statements issued by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry that proposes significant increases in the taxes charged to red meat export businesses and a walking away from government funding of critical market access and maintenance functions.

“The government’s proposal is for Australian agricultural exporters to be taxed at an increasingly unsustainable level with no end in sight, systemically eroding Australia’s competitiveness in international markets.

“Government must put its money where its mouth is when it comes to supporting agricultural productivity and market access,” Mr Ryan said.

“DAFF is the exclusive provider of critical regulatory services that enable the sale of Australian meat to global markets.

“Australian meat exporters are already up against heavily subsidised global competitors, with lower or no government export fees,” he said.

“The Albanese Government is adding even more costs onto agribusinesses at a time of substantive global instability.”