Bruce Honeywill reports

On May 31, the Gillard Government banned the live export of cattle from the Top End of Australia to Indonesia. This ill-considered decision put hundreds of highly skilled stock workers and livestock haulage drivers out of work and placed in jeopardy many Top End cattle producers, adversely affecting the entire economy of Northern Australia.

It began when a television program, Four Corners, ran a powerful investigation into the methods of killing Australian-sourced cattle in Indonesia. Nothing wrong with that, we need to know what is going on. There was of course an immediate reaction to the program, horror and disbelief from a mainly urban audience. But it was what happened next that was indefensible.

The Australian Government, instead of sending yet another review party to Indonesia to confirm or refute the claims made in the ABC program, instead of taking a considered look at the situation and using diplomacy to demand the use of stunning with Australian cattle before Halal slaughter, the Federal Government slammed shut the northern gateway to the export of live cattle. Overnight this left an entire industry in limbo, put trucks and highly skilled drivers out of work. The Top End was in trouble!
Adelaide River is 120 km south of Darwin. The little town straddles the Stuart Highway. This place is home to the Fawcett Cattle Company.

The trucks aren't moving, at least not on stock work. Fawcett's big bangers were keeping employed on the tipper work, but the Adelaide River yard and home depot of the Fawcett Cattle Company is full of stock trailers and a smattering of prime movers.

Jed Fawcett is a big bloke, damn big bloke when you stand beside him, a man better to have on your side than against I reckon. Jed, son of the company's founder Tom Fawcett, manages the transport side of the operation.

The Fawcett business is involved with cattle transport, road train tipper work and hay haulage across Northern Australia. Jed's a busy bloke and we chatted under a shady tree on a patch of impossibly green lawn outside the Adelaide River office, a contrast to the dust of the yard.

"Oh it was just crazy," he tells me referring to the Gillard Government's decision to ban live export, "absolutely crazy. Everyone was shocked by the footage, but the government could have done it a bit differently, they could have just shut down the bad abattoirs and kept the others going."

When he heard about the ban, Jed Fawcett was surprised, "Disbelief," he tells me was his first reaction, "oh just disbelief, hey? And it's going to affect all of Northern Australia right down to the corner store, the nuts and bolts of everything. It'll affect a lot more than they realise I reckon."

The Fawcett fleet runs 28 road trains, eight on cattle with the rest on tippers, floats and hay haulage. Kenworths and Macks predominate with one Volvo thrown in, "It's even got an automatic gearbox. It's pulling hay trailers."

Back to the current predicament with the now lifted live export ban - lifted maybe, but cattle are still not moving. "If it doesn't start cranking soon, it will affect us big time," Jed tells me. His main concern is losing the skilled livestock drivers.