Live ex ban: the costs incurred

The total figure of the class action the Brett Cattle Company is spearheading is still to be determined, given that others can join in.

However, she provided Fairfax Agricultural Media with an outline of the costs incurred, including money outlaid to maintain the health and quality of stranded cattle due to the Indonesian trade’s sudden suspension.

Ms Brett said on May 31, 2011 – the night the ABC Four Corners program “A Bloody Business” was aired - her family’s business had 2200 head of cattle in their yards ready to be exported to Indonesia. That shipment was initially postponed to June 12 but that consignment never happened, given the trade suspension came into play on June 7.

“We lost the sale which was worth $1.4 million,” she said.

“When the ban was lifted a month later, we weren’t able to sell those cattle and had to wait until September. That was a long time waiting around for money to come in from our first cattle sale of the year.

“We eventually ended up losing $180,000 on the sale because the prices had dropped and our cattle had also lost weight, because it was getting towards the end of the dry season when feed nutrition levels are low.”

Ms Brett said the business also faced outgoing costs that couldn’t be serviced due to the unexpected loss of income.

She said in early May 2011, they took delivery of fuel supplies worth $110,000, vital for running a large northern cattle station, on the understanding income was due from cattle sales in June.

“But after the ban we couldn’t sell the cattle so we had no money and then incurred overdue interest on the fuel bill,” she said.

“We’d also bought all of our vaccines and cattle tags worth $75,000 and couldn’t pay that account either. By not getting that money into our bank account, you can imagine the interest charges we faced.”

The business also operated trucks for on-farm work and also contract jobs to generate additional revenue. The trade suspension also precipitated a sudden downturn in work demand, which meant that side of their business fell $317,000 short of income for the year.

“The costs just kept adding up,” she said.

Ms Brett said ongoing costs were still being incurred through interest from the bank loan they took out to maintain the business.

But while much of Australia was expressing anger about Indonesian abattoir practices and donating money to activists groups to push for a permanent ban on the trade, the Bretts were spending money to avoid a catastrophic animal welfare disaster in their own backyard, due to the critical lack of feed.

Given the unplanned loss of the Indonesian market, they had to find another market to sell surplus cattle.

“When we realised we couldn’t get cattle on boats, we knew we had to do something - and also we didn’t know when the wet would start so we knew we had to get them off the property,” she said.

“Because they were only feeder cattle, they first had to be trucked 2700 kilometres for agistment to gain weight on a property in Queensland and then another 800kms to the feedlot. We had to incur all of those costs.

“The market was damaged up here, so it has been hard to keep going over the past three-and-a-half years.

“Indonesian import permits dropped so the market halved and it was very hard to sell cattle. The situation has improved slightly this year, with prices picking up, but it’s far from resolved.”

Ms Brett said property valuations had also dropped significantly in the Top End and very few properties had sold since the suspension.