The Country 25/09/25: Chris Russell talks to Jamie Mackay

Our Australian correspondent on the good and bad news for the sheep industry, only good news for beef, Albo and Trump, and the Bledisloe Cup.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How good is Eden Park going to be this weekend?
The Aussies haven't won since nineteen eighty six. Chris Russell,
Australian farming correspondent. I'll come back to the footy. I
want to talk sheep with you. At the moment, annual
marinos stud sales are on fire, but your live sheep
export industry is not doing so well.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
No, while there's there's two opposite sides of the equation.
Here over here in the East, we've started our round
of spring stud sales all through the New England area
and northern New South Wales and I must say they're
very pleasantly surprised. I was reading the reports from a
lot of the big studs up there. They're apporting significant eight,
nine ten percent jumps in their average prices for rams

(00:46):
being paid this year. There seems to be a real
air of confidence that we're going to see a rise
in the wall market. And also lambs are so good
of course, and so you know, people are happy to
spend more money on stat animals get some better marin
genetics again, so it's very encouraging. But at the same
time we're looking down the barrel of a ban on
live sheep exports from twenty twenty eight, which has been

(01:10):
a labour's plan in a suck up to the greens
over here for some years now, but that seems to
have been preempted because the companies that operate the live
sheep export transports are just not setting their transports into
Western Australia. They seem to have some of them have
sold a lot of the ships. Others of them are
fighting that they've got to create new markets out of

(01:31):
other countries because they realize the long term Australia is
not going to happen. So they've already started and there's
not a single live sheep ship dropping into two Perth
over the next three months leading right up till Christmas,
which is pretty scary. Last year, I think they had
a number of ships, probably one hundred and fifty thousand
were waiting at the docks for the first ship to

(01:52):
arrive at the beginning October when they can start shipping again.
But there's nothing there, No ship's coming, no sheep there.
In a way, it's been by default that live sheet
band's been brought in early Jamie.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Good news and bad news for the sheep industry. It's
only good news at the moment for the beef industry,
beef cow market hits record highs.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yes, well, I think that this is exciting, probably not
unexpected in a way because of the demand from the US,
but we're looking at the national process of cow indicator.
These are the finished cows. If you like getting three
hundred and ninety three cents of kilo. I mean, it
wasn't that long ago you were happy to get that
for a steer. And it's running hot because the world

(02:37):
has got this amazingly tight supply of lean beef, particularly
in America, where not only are they shot on beef
in total, but they're short on non fatty beef that
they can mix in to make a sort of a
good quality hamburger over there. So you know, it's continuing
to escalate. Certainly, the ten percent tariff hasn't made the
slightest even blip on the pricing. There's a massive change

(03:01):
happening in the market and even the old scrubber cows.
Are we going to really make some decent money?

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Jamie, Well, we can thank Trump for continuing to eat
McDonald's burgers. Mind youde Trump's he's kind of been giving
elbow your Prime Minister the elbow. But they've finally locked
in a meeting. Your Prime minister is quite rightly called
airpoints elbow. So he's going to have to fly back
over there.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, well, they sort of casually caught up, you know,
for a brief shake hands with you know, on the
sidelines of the UN conference over there. But yes, he's
been told, well, there's no time for a meeting while
you're already here in New York. So you've got to
fly back on the twentieth of October and we'll have
a nice meeting in the Able Office. There's been at
a school of thought here saying that Albow is not

(03:46):
in a hurry because he doesn't want to be put
through a Kolinsky type drilling over, you know, over for example,
what we've done with recognizing the state of Palestine and
what we're doing about time at change and so on.
But nonetheless, inevitably he was going to have a meeting.
We are going to have one. It's going to cost
more money because we've got to fly all the way

(04:07):
back over there for it, but we'll see what comes
out of it. I think that Trump's really got no
choice but to support Orcas because It's a critical part
of his plan, as is all the other facilities here
in Australia. But I think it's all being done through
gritted teeth. Jomie.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
I've got thirty seconds left, Chris. Thurl your boots on
the Bledder's low cup. Give yourself a fighter, a starters chance.
We haven't lost at Eden Park since nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yes, I know, and all the indicators say it's not
going to happen this time, except the fact we've got
Joe Schmidt. We've got some good history and we've got
a little bit of confidence. So bring it on, Jomie.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
It is going to be fantastic. Look, I think the
All Blacks will get the job done at Eden Park.
I'm not so sure. When we get over to Perth.
It's going to be fantastic to be there to see
that game. Chris Russell, we'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Look forward to it.