Federal government insists Indonesia's decision not to reissue import permits for live Australian cattle is not a permanent roadblock.
Indonesia last week delayed granting new licences for the July-to-September quarter given Australia's own suspension on exports, which could potentially last until November.
These moves have prompted fears within the industry that Indonesia could withhold the permits and use this as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Australia.
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The two countries are yet to agree on mutual slaughter standards which, along with a tracking system, are needed to get the $320 million trade up and running again.
But Prime Minister Julia Gillard insists there is nothing stopping Indonesia from reissuing the permits as soon as an agreement is reached.
"[Does] this definitely mean that Australia won't be in that market for three months? That's not true," Ms Gillard told parliament during question time on Monday.
"There is no technical impediment to Indonesia granting permits in the forthcoming three-month period."
Australia's suspension could last anywhere up to six months, although the coalition is demanding that trade resume immediately to a handful of abattoirs that abide by international standards.
The memo to 23 beef importers was copied to the Indonesian Agriculture Minister, the secretary-general of the Agriculture Ministry, the head of its quarantine division and divisional heads covering animal husbandry.
It signals that a resolution does not just depend on an Australian decision, and that the Indonesian government will have to now give the go-ahead to the resumption of the trade by issuing new import permits.
The government last week moved to ease the crisis in the beef industry by announcing that affected producers would each be eligible for up to $25,000 in financial assistance. Speaking on the ABC's Insiders program yesterday, Julia Gillard said it was her objective to resume the trade, but the animal welfare issues had to be addressed. "We won't wait one extra day, we are absolutely working full-bore on that," she said. "In the meantime we are providing some short-term assistance to people in the industry who need that assistance right now."
The opposition has been calling on the Prime Minister to visit Indonesia personally to resolve the issue.
NSW Liberal senator Bill Heffernan said the Indonesian memo showed "the ball is clearly in our court and the government has to show leadership".
Senator Heffernan said the government should immediately publish and implement an industry plan presented to it some weeks ago.
He said under the plan, the industry had agreed to the full tracing of cattle exported from Australia. He said exporting cattle to Indonesia abattoirs with proper standards would allow 40 to 50 per cent of the export capacity to be immediately resumed. "There is no excuse not to start issuing export authorisations. The looming industry catastrophe will cost billions of dollars," he said.
The internal Australian government assessment shows that producers will lose between $42m and $62m from the initial "first-round" impact of the ban.
The briefing estimates the full impact of the ban on "gross value of production" of the industry ranges from $99m if trade were reopened in July to $154m if the ban continued until December. "The impact on farm gate gross value of product of those selling into the live trade is even worse - it ranges from losses of $153m (about 30 per cent) to losses of $240m (almost 50 per cent)," it says.
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