Canberra's cattle treachery

Here on our island continent we are often insensitive to the emotions and interests of the countries around us. Nothing illustrates that better that the truly dreadful action we have taken against the poor in  Indonesia by banning all beef exports.

Indonesians with a knowledge of French might look at Australia as a modern day Queen Marie Antoinette. "If there is no meat – let them eat cake”.

Seriously, in our nearest neighbour many people have a deep-seated belief that Australians are racists. The mastermind of the Bali bombings, Abu Bakar Bashir, exploited that belief. Our handling of the meat affair will give Australia's 'racist' tag a far more logical basis.

If I was Indonesian I would be bitter with Australia and Australians and I would have every justification for that anger. Indonesia trusted us. Today's Liddington-Cox graph shows that our nearest neighbour allowed us to capture an incredible 75 per cent of Indonesian beef imports. 

It is always dangerous to rely on one country to source a vital food product for the poor people in your country. But we assured the Indonesians we would not let them down and underlined this by ministerial visits at high levels and the investment in ships and processing facilities of the highest order (Too much at stake in cattle export ban, June 13).

Then we betrayed that trust simply because an Australian government owned television station found bad practices in one or two abattoirs. Indonesians would be as shocked as us by those practices and of course they need to be stopped. But banning all meat exports that are essential for the protein of Indonesia's poor is not only a massive overreaction but will harm long-term relations. And we are simply in the wrong. 

It must have been evident from day one that there are facilities in Indonesia, three of which are owned by Australian and top Indonesian companies, that operate at the highest levels of quality. Banning cattle exports to these facilities was simply an insult to Indonesia. 

The incompetent Canberra public service and perhaps the minister knew about these problems and didn't tackle them. They are as much to blame as the local officials. Hopefully common sense will return to Canberra in the next few days so that we can begin again feeding the Indonesian poor protein through abattoirs we know are top quality. 

It may take longer to provide cattle to the abattoirs that need upgrading or better practices. Western Australia's Premier, Colin Barnett, says that Canberra no longer represents his state in this matter and if Canberra keeps dithering then all of Australia needs to rely on the West Australian premier to act in the interest of the whole nation.

And what Southern Australia forgets – but Western Australia does not – is that if we look forward just thirteen years Indonesia will have some 180 Russian/ Indian Sukhoi fighter aircraft. The Indonesians realise that because we are buying the inferior Joint Strike Fighter from US, Australia will no longer have significant airpower in the region (Australia's mission critical, October 4).

In other words, Indonesia will be the controller of our northern air space. The Australian government of the next decade will not have the option of  deciding what the Indonesian poor should eat.