SR,

With all due respect the banning was of all live cattle to Indonesia (which was nearly 1m p.a.) over an unverified report by animal activists of handful of cases in Indonesia. The total ban was in place for just under a month, meant that exports restarted very slowly, even a year later were about half of what they had been before, and is only now getting back to pre labor levels

Considering the importance of the the trade both to Australia and Indonesia, it was a wild and ill considered over reaction that hurt people, animals and livelihoods in both countries and severely soured relations with Indonesia. A rational response would have been to actually investigate the issues, determine the causes and then determine an appropriate response and actions to be taken.

Secondly the comparison with the ban on sheep to the ME is disingenuous, as the scale of the breaches led to the miserable deaths of tens of thousands of animals, and the authorities were not prepared to make any changes.

With respect to the Chinese dairy industry, the damage is entirely due to shonky producers and retailers tampering with the product, thinning it out, adding colourants etc leading to the poisoning of thousands of babies.

China has already an FTA with NZ which has seen their exports soar, and is forcing the local industry to improve their standards.