AMIEU exposed on live exports exaggerations

The Union issued a statement yesterday attacking Mr Joyce’s credibility ahead of a public protest today at Lismore in the NSW marginal seat of Page held by the Nationals’ Kevin Hogan who is facing an election challenge from Labor’s Janelle Saffin.

Ms Saffin was one of the key figures who led an ALP backbench revolt in support of union demands which sparked the snap 2011 ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011 that’s now subject to a $1 billion class action compensation case against the Commonwealth, to recover losses suffered by producers and other impacted businesses.

The AMIEU’s media statement made a series of accusations against Mr Joyce over his relationship with family owned cattle company Stanbroke based on entries in his Register of Ministerial Interests saying that it, “may explain his staunch support for live exports”.

Union spokesperson Grant Courtney said the Register showed six private flights, paid for by Stanbroke, “with highly suspect timing” that raised “serious questions” about a potential conflict of interest.

“The Australian public has had enough of the lies and misinformation perpetuated by the live export trade,” he said.

“Mr Joyce must come clean on whether his support for live exports is a product of his relationship with one of Australia’s largest providers of live export cattle.

“Even in the face of overwhelming evidence from the meat processing industry that live exports are destroying Australian jobs and even when presented with shocking footage of systemic animal cruelty, (Mr) Joyce has refused to back down.

“It all makes sense now – he and his family are taking flight after flight around the country at the expense of one of the biggest players in the industry.”

But the Deputy Prime Minister said a cursory look on Stanbroke’s website would have revealed to the Union that the company was a family owned business which produced cattle across 1.6 million hectares of grazing country in Queensland, with only 5 per cent supplied for live exports.

He said the Union might be surprised to learn that more than 95pc of the cattle produced by the company were processed at its southern Queensland processing plant which employed about 500 meat workers.

“This means that the unions claim that the company is “one of the biggest players” in the live export industry is completely false,” he said.

“Stanbroke is a great Australian family owned business involved in every aspect of the red meat sector and like the sector overall, live exports are a small but important part of their business.”

Mr Joyce said Stanbroke was a proudly Australian owned vertically integrated cattle producer, feed-lotter, processor and exporter of Australian beef.

He said the only conspiracy the AMIEU had uncovered was that he was in fact “a big backer of meat workers, cattle producers and beef exporters and yes that includes live exporters”.

“I support the whole industry and I appreciate the AMIEU giving me the opportunity to make that clear,” he said.

The AMIEU has escalated its opposition to the trade following revelations of mistreatment of cattle in Vietnam, not yet proven to have been exported from Australia, in video footage taken by an animal rights group and broadcast on ABC television to coincide with the federal election campaign.

The Union was contacted for further comment on Mr Joyce’s response but declined.

Earlier this month, a union protest was also held outside Mr Joyce’s office in Tamworth in his New England electorate claiming loss of local meat processing jobs and blaming live exports.