Meat and Livestock Australia’s proposal to move industry watchdog Aus-Meat into one streamlined company and remove its auditing arm is news to meat processors.
Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) chairman Stephen Kelly said he was not aware of the proposal and it would have no support from the processing sector.
“It would need the agreement of AMPC and would need a broader discussion. I certainly would not be supporting Aus-Meat’s moving to one company.”
Aus-Meat, jointly owned by MLA and AMPC, was initially set up almost 20 years ago to look after meat standards and the beef language, but has since developed a fee-for-service auditing arm, Aus-qual.
MLA managing director Richard Norton’s proposal is for those commercial auditing functions be tendered out by a new integrity system.
The proposed changes would be part of a wider streamlining of the meat industry’s integrity system mapped out by the Safemeat Initiatives Review that would see NLIS, NVDs and LPA, for example, merged into one body.
“The point is that there has been no discussion in regards to Aus-meat and the role it plays moving into any other entity,” Mr Kelly said.
The watchdog carried out audits on behalf of the industry both at abattoirs and on-farm, and worked on standards developed by the government, he added.
“So I would be reluctant to see it moved somewhere else.”
Teys Australia general manager for corporate services Tom Maguire said the restructure claims were completely untrue and without basis.
“Changes to Aus-Meat have not been discussed by the Aus-Meat board of directors, AMPC or to the best of my knowledge industry,” he said.
Mr Maguire said the industry watchdog’s systems and audits underpinned access of beef into key markets, including the European Union.
The Aus-Meat language also underpinned key market access protocols in most of their major beef export markets, he added.
“Australia’s international trading partners place considerable trust in these systems and would need to be consulted before any substantial changes were proposed.
“Any changes to Aus-Meat need to consider these impacts.”
Mr Maguire said Teys Australia was on record stating that Aus-Meat systems had served the industry well for the last 30 years but change was now required as the industry moved from a commodity base to serve customers.
“Teys is very happy to contribute to a mature and transparent debate on these issues.”
