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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-13 Daily Xml
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Sheep and Goat Electronic Identification

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:34): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development on sheep and goat electronic identification.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: In the minister's announcement on Thursday of last week for electronic identification for sheep and goats she said that despite some producers seeking exemptions from certain classes or movement, exemptions will only be granted for rangeland goats. In a radio interview about the government's rollout of the sheep and goat electronic identification, the CEO of Livestock SA said, and I quote, 'The discussion around exemptions continues.'

On the Livestock SA website, under the question, 'Will it be mandatory to tag sheep with eID that are going direct from the property of birth to the abattoir?' the answer is provided as follows:

The consultation process collected feedback from all areas of the supply chain including sheep going direct from property of birth to abattoir. This feedback has been provided to the state government who will decide on whether sheep going directly to slaughter from place of birth should be exempt from mandatory eID tagging.

Sheep going direct from the property of birth to the abattoir are currently required to have a property identification code (PIC) tag and a national vendor declaration form, which communicates the food safety and treatment status of every animal that moves along the value chain. The argument is that eID will not further improve traceability in these situations and will only add cost to the producer.

My question to the minister is: why doesn't the minister support the calls by Livestock SA and many sheep and prime lamb producers for a tag exemption for vendor bred to slaughter lambs consigned directly from the property of birth to the abattoir and will the minister grant this exemption?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:36): I thank the honourable member for her question. However, she has mischaracterised, in my opinion, the advocacy from Livestock SA.

Certainly, I have been very keen to be able to have the close engagement of Livestock SA as well as other sectors within the industry in terms of implementation of electronic identification. As we have mentioned on a number of occasions, this is an incredibly important initiative to improve livestock traceability that will assist with emergency animal disease responses should there be an outbreak in our state or, indeed, in our nation.

An important part of that is access to international markets. National consistency is considered to be a goal of eID in terms of a goal for traceability because, of course, many of our international trading partners see themselves dealing with Australia as a nation rather than individual jurisdictions. That, in fact, was a point that was raised with me last week by a producer.

The national consistency is incredibly important and the majority of states have ruled out, as far as I am aware, exemptions other than for rangeland goats, which is the situation that I am implementing here in South Australia. So rangeland goats will not be required to be mandatorily tagged for eID, but all others will. The implementation is such that from 1 January 2025, all newborn goats (or kids) and lambs will be required to be tagged with eID. From 1 January 2027, all those animals that are moving off property will be required to be tagged with eID.

As a result of that initiative, I was very pleased last week to be able to announce over $9 million worth of funding to assist with this transition. That includes a 75 per cent subsidy for essential infrastructure across the supply chain for those who are implementing eID, as well as a tag subsidy for producers. That tag subsidy will be very important in terms of encouraging early adoption. I am very pleased to say that the response has been, on the whole, very positive. We have been able to assure producers that tags will be kept below $1 each and the infrastructure subsidies have also been welcomed in many quarters.

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