Proposed Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle

4.3.2 Cost drivers of the proposed national standards

This part of the RIS highlights the main cost drivers of the proposed national standards, as shown in Table 19; that is, the standards that impose the highest costs. This part also helps to contextualize the proposed national standards by illustrating the impact of discounted 2012-13 dollar costs and the average cost per cow in each state and territory, as shown in Table 20. A list of unquantifiable costs is also provided at the end of these tables. All other proposed standards have been assessed as imposing negligible incremental costs relative to the base case.

Table 19 – Quantifiable 10-year incremental cost of proposed national standards by state and territory – 2012-13 dollars (7% discount rate) ($m) ¹⁰⁰

Proposed Standard	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	WA	TAS	NT	ACT	TOTAL
5.4 (dog control)	$0.66	$0.39	$0.47	$0.11	$0.11	$0.06	$0.01	$0.00	$1.81
5.5 (dog muzzling)	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
5.6 (tethering and exercise)	$2.02	$0.23	$0.20	$0.19	$0.22	$0.26	$0.00	$0.00	$3.13
5.7 (Electro-immobilisation training)	-$0.20	$0.02	$0.07	$0.01	$0.01	-$0.02	$0.01	$0.00	-$0.11
6.2 (Castration with pain relief)	$0.00	$0.43	$1.41	$0.00	$0.27	$0.00	$0.20	$0.00	$2.31
6.4 (Dehorning with pain relief)	$1.76	$1.41	$2.86	$0.00	$0.57	$0.00	$0.41	$0.00	$7.02
6.7 (Spaying training)	$0.00	$0.00	$2.74	$0.00	$0.12	$0.00	$0.23	$0.00	$3.11
6.8 (Spaying with pain relief)	$0.00	$0.00	$10.70	$0.00	$0.46	$0.00	$0.94	$0.00	$12.09
6.9 (Banning use of spreaders)	$0.00	$0.00	$0.50	$0.00	$0.02	$0.00	$0.04	$0.00	$0.56
7.2 (Inspection of calving cows)	$0.63	$0.63	$0.71	$0.25	$0.12	$0.14	$0.08	$0.00	$2.56
8.4 (calf feeding requirements)	$0.13	$0.00	$0.06	$0.06	$0.04	$0.12	$0.00	$0.00	$0.41
9.2 (Heat stress management in dairy cattle)	$0.13	$0.72	$0.09	$0.04	$0.03	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$1.01
9.3 (Banning tail docking unless for welfare reasons)	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.01
10.2 (Keeping records of feed quality)	$0.01	$0.00	$0.02	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.04
10.4 (Heat emergency requirements)	$0.09	$0.05	$0.21	$0.02	$0.04	$0.01	$0.02	$0.00	$0.43
11.5 (Banning of blunt force trauma killing of calves >24hrs of age)	$0.23	$1.42	$0.17	$0.08	$0.06	$0.16	$0.00	$0.00	$2.12
Total PV	$5.47	$5.29	$20.20	$0.77	$2.07	$0.74	$1.95	$0.01	$36.51

Table 20 and other similar tables in this RIS showing average cost per cow are designed to give an estimated total cost per animal in each jurisdiction and to provide an understanding of the relative impact of standards (or variations) by state or territory. However, some of the standards (variations) will apply only to beef cattle, dairy cattle, or both and the average cost per cow is not broken down into this detail. Furthermore, even if it were broken down, it is not possible to determine the number of animals either affected or not affected by one or more standards (variations). Therefore, care should be taken in using the average cost per cow in a jurisdiction to interpret the impact of standards or variations on a particular industry sector or an individual farmer’s herd.

Table 20 – Range of average 10-year cost per cow as a result of the proposed national standards by state and territory – 2012-13 dollars¹⁰¹

	NSW	VIC	QLD	SA	WA	TAS	NT	ACT	TOTAL
Total ($m)	$5.46	$5.32	$20.20	$0.77	$2.07	$0.74	$1.95	$0.01	$36.53
Total beef and dairy herd (m)	5.58	3.39	12.54	1.20	2.01	0.61	2.20	0.01	27.54
Cost per cow	$0.98	$1.57	$1.61	$0.64	$1.03	$1.21	$0.89	$0.86	$1.33

The list of unquantifiable costs (cost savings) under the proposed standards is given as follows:

• 
  Proposed Standard 3.2 – Unquantifiable minor incremental cost of inspecting cattle at intervals and at a level appropriate to the production system and risk to the welfare of cattle. Possible risks to cattle welfare include and are not limited to: fire; lack of water; lack of supplements (e.g. calcium or minerals); and bovine diseases. The incremental cost remains unquantifiable due to unknown variables in relation to – cattle breeds; regions; production systems; risks to welfare; and levels of existing inspections.
  

• 
  Proposed Standard 10.3 – Unquantifiable minor incremental cost saving of ensuring feed is available daily to cattle in the beef feedlot. This would result in costs savings to beef feedlots not in the NFAS (estimated to be around 1,762¹⁰²) in not being required to remove stale or spoilt feed, although in many cases this would probably be done anyway. Given that the frequency of this is unknown – this cost savings remains unquantifiable.
  

Based on advice received from jurisdictions on the far more detailed Land Transport Standards¹⁰³, a reasonable assumption is made that there will be negligible incremental costs in enforcing the proposed standards compared to the existing code under the base case.