At BeefEx, former federal minister Christopher Pyne spoke about the wealth Australia has built through primary industries and mining. We also heard that food security is national security. Two facts, no argument from me. I’ve heard this from the government themselves on more than one occasion. My question is, can they keep that energy when the chips are down?

Because being called essential does not seem to count for much when an industry needs government to stand behind a decision it has made, or help solve a problem it cannot solve alone.

Let’s talk social licence, or as they call it at Australian Eggs, community trust. We have a job to do here. We need to explain what happens on stations, in feedlots and through the supply chain. We need to continue to listen to genuine concerns and be honest when something goes wrong. As Rowan McMonnies from Australian Eggs said at BeefEx, that conversation has to include people who may disagree with us. We’re great at talking to ourselves, but talking to ourselves doesn’t move the dial.

MLA also have a job to do here. They spend levy dollars helping the public understand red meat production. But the government should also have some responsibility. When a practice is challenged, the government that wrote the standards, checks compliance and holds the evidence should be willing to explain what its rules require and what its checks have found. Leaving that explanation entirely to industry asks the regulated party to speak for the regulator.

Live cattle exports are an obvious example. The Australian Government regulates animal welfare in the trade through standards and an assurance system. When people question whether those standards are being met, the regulator should answer in plain English. Where breaches occur, it should say what it has done. Where a claim does not match the evidence, it should say that too. People are not going to spend their evenings reading legislation to find out for themselves.

The government responsibility does not end there. The same principle applies when the challenge is practical rather than reputational.

At another BeefEx session, a major Australian processor described the call that brought the Strait of Hormuz disruption home. A fuel supplier had warned that it could no longer deliver to two of the company’s feedlots. There were already thousands of cattle on feed, and feeding them could not simply wait until the fuel supply improved.

The processor was then dealing with two federal departments at once. One had little practical help to offer with the emerging problem. The other wanted assurances the company could get meat into supermarkets the following week.

It’s been playing on my mind. If food on shelves matters enough to demand an answer from a processor, surely the problems that determine that answer matter enough for those departments to tackle together.

Agricultural businesses manage risk every day. Producers, feedlots and processors plan ahead. They find alternative suppliers and they adjust when conditions change. Nobody expects government to make every commercial problem disappear. But individual businesses cannot secure supplies through international relationships, reopen a flood damaged road or make separate departments work on the same problem.

We saw government do some of that work this year. It worked with Indonesia and industry to secure additional urea, and with Singapore to keep energy trade flowing. That is practical support, and it matters. The question is whether the same urgency reaches a business when it raises a problem that threatens its ability to keep food moving. Like Andrew Henderson told us at BeefEx – “Fuel in the country, is not fuel in your tank.”

The Australian Government says responsibility for food security is shared between governments, industry and the community. I agree. But shared responsibility needs to mean more than industry delivering the outcome while government asks for reassurance that it will.

When government sets the rules, it should explain them publicly, and account for the decisions it makes under them. When it depends on industry to keep food moving through a major disruption, it should help bring the right people together to deal with what is in the way.

The next time government calls our industry essential, I want to see what it means: explain the decisions you make, and help solve the problems only you can when food supply is on the line.