Nationals leader David Littleproud is using the decision to drop restrictions on US beef imports to try and claw back a little bit of authority over his party room. He is holding a press conference in the Mural Hall to discuss the Nationals response – which is, ‘not happy, Albanese’.

Littleproud:

Look, earlier today I was given a briefing on the changes of protocols with respect to importing US beef. Unfortunately, that has raised more questions than provided answers. It has raised my suspicion about the speed and timing of this decision.

A decision that apparently was one that has been taken over a long period of time, yet the government has not provided or released the protocols on which the beef from the US could be imported into this country.

Those are the legal requirements that an importer would have to meet to bring beef from the US into Australia. That was from Mexico or Canada.

The fact they haven’t done that raises serious concerns to me around how this decision has been made and the timing of it. If it was well planned, the department would be able to provide me with those details. They have not.

I think the prudent way forward is to have an independent scientific panel review the department’s decision and the protocols when they come out. There is a precedent for this and that precedent was one that I put in place when I was agriculture minister, around importing of prawns back into Australia, after the white spot outbreak.

I think it would be prudent for this government to have an independent panel that industry could hand select the scientific rigour that is required and the personnel on that panel to review the decision. We need to give confidence to the Australian public, not just the agricultural sector.

The government says this decision is the result of a review which was started before all the trade tariff stuff, but it seems very sus on its timing.