All due to a story run on tv. Yes, a media story shocked enough people to cause them to complain and the gov't has had a kneejerk reaction and banned beef export to a particular place. All blown out of proportion.
I won't go into it too much but anyway my sister sent me some links about a station I worked on in my late teens.
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/w...705-1h07w.html
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/th...706-1h2d0.html
The first link says the owner is on the verge of shooting $120,000 worth of cattle per day as a result of the ban. The second link is a bit history about the station owners. My time there was prior to all this and I can tell you the station has rarely been very profitable.
Long story short- the gov't were very short sighted and shot themselves in the foot. The places the bans applied to have already sourced beef from other countries.