*Wouldn't AU be better off value adding instead of selling whole*

Clearly not, or they would buy them and slaughter them here.
The value adding story doesen't work, unless you want to use it
for everything. Consumers buy 85% of their cars as imports, they
could have value add the iron ore. But somebody would have to
pay, its the same with cattle.

Those Northern cattle need feedlotting anyhow, which is what
Indonesia does with them. So its a win-win marketing chain.

Lexi,

Funny how cyclical booms happen under the liberals, and how with the biggest mining boom in history, under labor most of the country is still struggling.

instead of selling whole*
Yabby,
the sole reason for live cattle export is a religious one. The importers want to ensure the beasts are slaughtered according to religious belief/practice. This can not be ensured to be done here.

Yabby! do not do it! back to the past thousands of words millions maybe have been said about these cattle not being the ones we put on our table.
How processing can not take place because money can not be made out of it over there or up here.
We can produce a billion rolls of Devon a day but how do we sell it.
Why bother,
This thread has posters as uninformed as my government was on this issue.
We every one of us, should understand,while we find reason to question the intelligence and understanding of others no hard task.
We would do better reviewing our own thoughts.
leave you to it bloke tell him about how many country's take live exports and how many send them.

Belly, sadly the debate in public is going to have to continue,
because so many are so badly informed about the topic. Xenephon
for instance, who should have a tiny clue as to what he is talking about,
given that he is putting bills before parliament, recently
wanted to convince Coles and Woolies to sell Northern cattle as mince.

Now anyone who knows anything about breaking down a carcass, knows
that its the valuable cuts that drive the value of the whole animal.
If the whole animal has little value, the price paid will be a pittance and to
run stations, charter helicopters for muster etc,
is not cheap.

Its quite concerning that people with so little knowledge about a
subject, can have so much political power, with tens of thousands
of livelyhoods at stake. Ignorance is not bliss, for those on the receiving end of all this ignorant politics.

SM,

Ever heard of the Global Financial Crisis -
which was started by the conservatives and
the greedy bankers in the US, and supported
by our former conservative government -
under Mr Howard who pandered to every US dictate.