Abattoirs As Dead As Mutton
Western Victoria MP Bev McArthur has called the new Stage 4 restrictions that apply to abattoirs, "reckless and ill-thought-out".
There are significant flow on implications of even a partial shut down of abattoirs. Not only will there be immediate job losses as with Midfield Meats in South West Victoria but there will be significant effects on farm livestock that are prepared for set markets at regular times in the production chain.
The new restrictions announced on Monday mean that all abattoirs across the state are forced to reduce their processing capacity by a third.
Dean McKenna, General Manager of Midfield Meats said, "Midfield can't afford to pay the wages of the 340 workers for six weeks as it relates to a direct cost of $3.8 million. These processes run like a bike chain and you can't run them with missing links." [1]
Quotes attributable to Bev McArthur MP:
"Midfield Meat undertook significant financial cost to proactively close their operation down temporarily and test all 1000 staff after a meat inspector visited their site. For the State Government to now reward their responsible and proactive behaviour and service to the community with these heavy-handed restrictions costing hundreds of livelihoods in the area, is Government irresponsibility on a mammoth scale."
"These restrictions are a huge punch in the gut for a sector that is predominantly comprised of conscientious business people and diligent workers to whom the Premier obviously cannot relate, having never had a job in the private sector, let alone taken risks to run a business."
“This is the tragic story of just one facility, but it will be repeated in abattoirs throughout the state."
"The consequences of this decision will be severe, not only for the abattoirs themselves and their workers who will be forced onto the unemployment scrap heap, but also for the wider rural and regional communities and all the secondary businesses that depend on those employees' disposable incomes to survive. As casuals, laid-off workers will be ineligible for JobKeeper, and the effect on them, their families, and the local economy will be devastating."
"This government doesn't have a clue about what it's like to run a business, let alone one outside the tram tracks of Melbourne, and their arbitrary restrictions on workplaces demonstrate that."
"We've heard repeated stories of healthcare and aged care workers without sufficient PPE. If abattoirs can't get full medical standard PPE they won't be allowed to operate at all. The Andrews Government's performance to date gives me no confidence at all that this threat to the industry has been properly addressed."
4 August 2020