11/11/2021
LiveCorp’s new board member, Su McCluskey, is no stranger to live exports or LiveCorp.
She was the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations (CRRDC), of which LiveCorp is one of 15, and more recently has been a member of the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council (ALEC) Code of Conduct Committee.
As a farmer herself, with a small Murray Grey operation near Yass in NSW, Su has a practical understanding of animal welfare and knows no-one wants to put their livelihood at risk through poor practices. She’s not only been exposed to debates around live exports through the CRRDC, but topics like caged eggs, sow stalls and mulesing.
One of the challenges with live exports is that producers themselves don’t have any contact or visibility over their animals once they leave the country. They need reassurance that the ships are run well, and that standards are being enforced in abattoirs overseas.
Su believes the industry is generally respected and highly regarded for its approach to best practice animal health and welfare, and needs to lead by example and enforce that.
She says there’s also a need to get the facts out, to counter the fiction, and LiveCorp can play a role here. There’s an opportunity to influence and change perceptions about the industry, by effectively communicating the robust research and development processes that underpin best practice.
It is also important to make sure that research doesn’t sit on a shelf, but is turned into practical materials that encourage adoption and make tangible differences on the ground.
As a director of LiveCorp, Su wants to help to effect change that will have a positive impact on producers, exporters and others in the livestock export supply chain in relation to the productivity and profitability of their businesses.
This will be helped by her extensive experience and expertise in regulatory frameworks, policy reform and the ability to effect legislative change that is practical. Su also has excellent networks across government and rural and regional Australia, and a strong background in corporate governance, risk and financial management, change management, culture and compliance.
Other current roles include being a Director of the Australasian Pork Research Institute and the NSW Rice Marketing Board, and a Commissioner for International Agricultural Research.
Su founded her farm 30 years ago with genetics based on the original Murray Grey bloodlines and ran it as a stud for many years. More recently, it has been mainly a commercial enterprise, with the local Yass High School (pre-COVID) preparing and showing her steers.