Coronavirus: Call to deem food processing an essential service
Meat processors have called on the federal and state health ministers to deem them an essential service, to keep food flowing to panicked Australian households.
THE meat industry is accusing health ministers of giving rugby players greater access to coronavirus testing kits than the workers maintaining Australians’ food supply.
“We’re hearing the rugby league community is getting preference for coronavirus (testing) kits,” Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive Patrick Hutchinson said.
“We’ve written to health ministers across the country saying it’s (test kits) one of the things they need to put in place. (And) we need to make sure the meat supply chain is deemed an essential service.”
Mr Hutchinson said the key issue was to ensure that if a coronavirus case was picked up in a meat processing plant, then workers could be quickly tested, the site cleaned up and put back in operation as soon as possible.
He said high hygiene standards and the compartmentalised nature of meat processing works, meant they could be put back on line in a matter of hours, not days.
Mr Hutchinson said AMIC had called on the federal and all state health ministers to deem the meat processing supply chain an essential service, giving it priority access to freight, fuel and of course coronavirus testing kits.
He said Australians already deemed red meat as an essential source of healthy protein, as evidenced by the long lines at butchers and rationing at supermarkets.
All states have essential services legislation, which in an emergency allows the relevant minister to prohibit strike action and under the Victoria Act “requisition the use of property of any kind which is used or may be used for or in connection with the operation or maintenance of any essential service”.
The Weekly Times is seeking feedback from dairy processors and the NSW and Victorian Governments on whether they will support the call for food processors to be deemed essential services.
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