The west says no to eID proposals

'We don't want it in the west' was the firm opinion of Tony Brown, Reola, Station, west of Wanaaring, and most of the 40 or so producers at the NSW Agriculture Minister, Dugald Saunders' forum discussing sheep and goat eID at the Back O Bourke Function Centre on Tuesday.

While there was a physical presence from landholders who could navigate through floods that crisscross the region, a good number online listened to the conversation.

Mr Saunders said he was aware of western landholders' challenges and was working to ensure NSW had a smoother transition to the eID program than other states like Queensland and South Australia. Victoria already uses eID for sheep and goats.

He also assured the meeting that he would be fighting hard for the lion's share of $20 million offered by the Federal government to assist with the transition. A further $26m would help update the technology employed to run an eID program and ensure it was prioritised in cyber-security protection.

Under the NSW proposal, landholders would only have to start tagging kids or lambs after January 1, 2025. In contrast, the remaining states would begin the eID program in a whole flock situation from the same date. NSW producers would only need to tag their entire flocks in 2027.

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Kylie Baty, Yantanbulla, between Bourke and Hungerford, has four properties that total about 162,000 hectares and harvests between 30,000 and 40,000 goats.

Ms Baty said she could suggest a hybrid system of ear tags and updated vendor declarations, which could easily match the eID design for the delivery of information, and it would be far more suitable for those who live in the far west.

She also raised concerns for animal welfare and work health and safety issues for animals and landholders applying tags to wild animals before their transportation for sale or processing.

The Pastoralist's Association of West Darling (PAWD) president Terry Smith wrote to express his organisation's concerns with the proposal.

"At the grassroots level, enormous concern and anger is arising from the planned adoption of mandatory eID for sheep and goats," Mr Smith wrote.

"This is expressed on social media, in traditional media, and in face-to-face conversations. Livestock producers and other stakeholders are aggrieved that they are not being heard. In some circumstances, the process of adopting mandatory eID is being rushed through without proper consultation or consideration for adopting commonsense eID tag-free movement options."

In a letter to the PAWD membership, Mr Smith said: "PAWD believes that tagging sheep or goats going direct to slaughter from a property of birth do not improve traceability, and tagging of rangeland goats is problematic on account of labour availability, infrastructure costs, animal welfare, time in yards, cost issues and the sheer physical difficulty of being able to restrain fully grown animals to apply an ear tag safely."

Ben Mannix, Bourke highlighted the dangers to people and animals while "tagging wild animals".

"They are large, strong and dangerous. I've lost the use of one eye handling wild goats," he said.

Sue Glover, Brewarrina, said another major issue was the protection of rangeland goat flocks, and she called for the introduction of "decent laws to crack down on trespass and theft".

Mr Saunders took on board criticism from the floor that there had not been trials run with eIDs in western flocks and said it would be given strong consideration in the New Year.

The Minister also tried to clarify concerns about range land goats captured and sent to a depot or a processing plant.