John Singleton, “Meat’s future on the chopping block,” Australian Business, April 23, 1986, p. 125.

Once we were a nation of red-blooded Aussies. Now the food that made us that is facing lean times.

Prince Charles and I have a lot in common: Sinclair Hill. Now Hill, apart from being one of the best friends a man could have, is one of our greatest sportsmen, one of our largest meat producers and most of all a great Australian.

None of which helps when you are trying to sell meat in a country where suddenly meat has become about as popular as cancer and the advertising to compensate this trend about as relevant as a Y-Cough to a terminal disease.

Three weeks ago Hill tried to raise some points with the Australian Meat and Livestock Corp about why they were doing what they were doing and why they weren’t doing some things that might sell some meat instead. He was allowed two minutes and then ruled out of order. I wonder who is really out of order? Sinclair or the corporation?

Let’s look at the real situation. In a country that used to pride itself on being full of “red blooded” Australians. Ten years ago Aussies ate 111kg each of red meat every year. Today consumption is down 37 per cent. The sudden drop occurred in 1979 when meat sales plummeted 27 per cent.

What happened in 1979 was that beef and veal prices skyrocketed. Naturally sales plummeted. Prices up, sales down. Lesson one in all basic commodities.

Then in 1983 there was a flood of drought-stricken livestock dumped on the market with no comparable price drop. And when the drought broke the cockies started to rebuild their herds and prices went up and sales went down again like they always have done and always will do.

You want to know how bad it is now? You should. If the meat industry is totally stuffed, so is Australia. Remember beef export sales are half as important to Australia as wool.

Since 1974 vegie sales have gone up 10 per cent, chook sales have gone up 61 per cent, seafood up 18 per cent. All at the expense of meat. And no wonder.

Recently in The Bulletin famous Australians including the most popular and influential of all, Bob Hawke, were asked what they did to stay healthy, wealthy and wise. “Give up meat” was the almost unanimous answer even from our red-blooded PM.

The facts are that lean meat contains about the same cholesterol as chicken and far less than health foods like prawns, let alone eggs.

Another fact: 100g of lean grilled steak gives you half the protein, a third the iron and zinc, and all the vitamin B12 you need for a day and all it takes up in one-tenth a day’s suggested kilojoule intake suggested by all the health freaks.

What about cancer? Vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists have the same rate of cancer as the Mormons of Utah who are the largest beefeaters in the US. So what? So 50/50.

The meat industry is a shambles. The product has been pilloried at home and sabotaged overseas. It spends nothing (approximately 0.1 per cent of its retail sales dollar) on advertising. And what it does spend is an almost total irrelevancy.

Sick of “Feeding the Man Meat” the Meat Corp has zeroed in on, I suppose, the working mum with their “short cuts” advertising. Probably with the good intention of getting the working mum to realise that meat is as quick to prepare as the Colonel’s reheated chicken, which it isn’t. But what about the big jobs — the jobs that must be done if meat is to survive, let alone thrive?

  • Who is telling us that meat isn’t bad for you, in fact it is good? And proof.
  • What about some research which would inevitably show a correlation between vegetarianism and drug taking. The two cultures seem to me to be closely related. Research would be prove or disprove it. I would be happy to take a wager.
  • What about meat eating and heterosexual activity vis-a-vis seaweed and limp wrists?
  • What about some new products?
  • What about being able to buy meat the same hours as you can buy chicken?

No, none of that. Too sensible. Clever arty farty ads which need a high IQ to even work out. Which won’t help our farmers’ kids very much. They won’t be able to afford school fees.