Richmond Beef has a gripe?

In July 2011 the Australian Government lifted its month long ban on the export of live cattle to Indonesia.

In August 2011 the Richmond River Beef Producers Association went to the local media, not to express concerns about this ban which did not directly affect the small group of producers in the Kyogle region, but to highlight concerns about Kyogle Council’s Draft Local Environment Plan potentially devaluing rural properties.

Thirteen months later the Richmond River Beef Producers Association wrote to the Federal Member for Page Janelle Saffin concerning the alleged flow-on effects from the now defunct Live cattle ban.

Then this letter to the editor appeared in The Northern Star 15 May 2013:

Irrational ban
Has the Federal Member for Page, Janelle Saffin, gone into hiding?
Our beef industry organisation has written two letters to Janelle Saffin, one in October last year, the second in February this year, regarding important issues in relation to the beef industry.
To date we have not even had an acknowledgement of those letters, let alone a reply.
The issues we raised alerted her to the flow-on effect that we could expect from the Government's irrational banning of the live export of cattle to Indonesia.
These warnings have now been realised, as the cattle producers here, and all over the country, are being dealt a severe blow, with prices well below the cost of production as the market is now saturated.
The very least we would have expected from our elected representative was an acknowledgement of our letters.

Kathy Day

Acting Secretary

Richmond River Beef

Now I will accept Ms. Day’s word that these letters received no reply, however I do note the following:

The market is not saturated solely by cattle which were not sold off twenty-three months ago -  these cattle were successfully withheld from the market until dry conditions in the northern half of Australia resulted in more cattle across the board being sold off to meat processors in the first quarter of this year.

However, Meat and Livestock Australia reports that this sell-off is not affecting all regional markets: In contrast, pockets of the eastern third of Queensland and NSW had well above average rainfall through summer, causing flooding in some regions and in the process building sufficient feed banks for the winter. This has, to a small extent, eased some of the pressure on cattle markets. 

In May 2013 The Australian  reported that an extra 20,000 to 25,000 cattle [will be] shipped into Indonesia from major live export ports such as Darwin, Karumba and Derby in June and that the flow-on effect of the early quota movement would be an extra 25,000 cattle sold to Indonesia this year, given the need to keep the beef supply pipeline full every month.

On 8 May 2013 the yarding of export cattle at Casino Saleyards consisted of a few pens of grown steers/heifers and a mix of cows from a pool of 1,584 beasts, which suggests that export cattle are not a large part of the local market.

It would appear that cattle producers in the Northern Rivers may not be as affected by any residual flow-on from the short-lived 2011 live cattle export ban as Ms. Day suggests.

One has to wonder if the Day family's association with the North Coast Nationals, rather than concerns over cattle prices or unanswered letters, prompted a return-the-favour letter to the editor in an election year.