Industry watchdog Aus-Meat could be set for an overhaul with plans to bring it under one company and strip it of its auditing services.
MLA’s general manager Richard Norton, who sits on its board, said consultation on the change was planned for peak industry bodies.
“What is clear is that some of these commercial functions that Aus-Meat does can, and should be, tendered out by the new integrity system so it breaks down the monopoly that has perhaps existed in industry around third-party auditing.”
Set up almost 20 years ago to maintain meat production and processing standards, Aus-Meat has moved to become one of the largest players for auditing standards in agriculture, plant and horticulture industries through its subsidiary Aus-qual.
Mr Norton said the proposed move would give the opportunity to set up one system that would encapsulate all the auditing systems that had been imposed on industry currently.
The proposed changes are part of a wider streamlining of the meat industry’s integrity system that manages risk and underpins Australia’s beef reputation from paddock to plate.
This was mapped out in the Safemeat Initiatives Review final report released in August, which focused on improving and streamlining industry programs, including the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS), National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) and the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) program.
“There are all these different levels of integrity systems that were brought in as needed over the last 15 years, put them all into one and surely there will be efficiency gains,” Mr Norton said.
The integrity system would have its own independent board, with peak industry councils represented, and MLA would continue funding it, he added.
The issue was discussed last month at the red meat senate inquiry hearing in Canberra, where Mr Norton said the system could be up and running by the end of March next year.
At the inquiry, the committee told Aus-Meat’s chief executive Ian King it had heard from processors and producers that people who had an issue with how their cattle were graded, for a number of reasons, would not raise it.
Mr King said the body provided an independent, neutral service to producers and processors.
“Quite often the complaints are not to do with the grading; they are to do with a misunderstanding about the price grid operates,” he told the committee.
