If we limited live trade to our autumn and their spring? Most of the problems with the live trade would disappear. Leaving our summer and their winter a possibility for live cattle. And or an intense abattoir season and an increase in chilled meat exports. And killed here using traditional and humane methods. The current system sends meat as cooked before the kill, trade and entirely unacceptable. We could invest in some offshore refrigeration and eliminate the foreign profit demanding middleman. So as to enhance the chilled meat direct sales trade and our onshore job creation and maintenance. In any event, our economy is far too reliant on a trade which can be terminated tomorrow by the outbreak of regional hostilities! And needs to be replaced by other means, say by using our brains and what we still own and control to quite massively reduce all on-farm costs! Thus ending the need for endless price taking to survive. I've seen the other possibility of a niche market on-farm abattoir supplying their own select paddock to plate local markets restaurant chains etc. Alan B.

Yet another hugely promising northern industry bites the dust.

The Ord River Scheme, which dates back to the 1960's... reduced through the years to a shadow of its promise.

The northern abattoir industry... gone.

Cattle enterprises dating back for a hundred years or more... flogged off to speculators.

What next?

Alan B:

Ever heard of paragraphs? Slabs of hundreds of words of unformatted text are not exactly easily comprehended.

Yes SE, but even if I incorporate the required paragraphs. A partially disabled word replaces them with the slab. And designed it seems, to allow Microsoft, to replace my current Email provider with theirs. And as a consequence, making most of my concurrent online account servicing problematic. I'm retrying paragraphs to see if the unhelpful interference/elder abuse has been remedied. Alan

Very interesting article. Thanks.

The stench of Julia Gillard lingers on!