Greens candidate for New England Mercurius Goldstein claimed as many as 100 people have lost their jobs, and he seized on the issue to push his party’s five-point plan for ending live exports.

Nationals Senate candidate for NSW John Williams said no-one wanted to see job losses, but considered Mr Goldstein’s comments a reflection of his lack of knowledge about the industry.

Bindaree Beef’s chief financial officer James Roger said a seasonal stock shortage is the reason for the reduced daily kill program.

He said all permanent employees were being retained, although a number will be transferred to different shifts and some will be asked to move into new roles.

“Without doubt our highest priority is retaining our current workforce and skill base and we are reducing the kill with the minimum impact on jobs,” Mr Roger said.

“We want to develop a sustainable workforce plan to take us through the remainder of 2016, into 2017 and beyond.

Mr Roger said a number of operational changes will be implemented, with the afternoon shift in the boning room ceasing.

The slaughter floor will continue to operate five days a week, the boning room day shift will continue to operate on a four-day rotating roster each week and the use of labour hire will be reduced as part of the changes.

But Mr Goldstein said livestock industry jobs Barnaby Joyce and Tony Windsor continue to support the live export trade.

“The Greens have consistently supported the local livestock industry over live exports. Reports of up to 100 job losses at Inverell now confirm the need for all of us to work out how we will support local livestock and local jobs,” he said.

“This is an urgent matter for New England families that are now without an income, while their jobs have been shipped offshore in a trade that enjoys the support of both Barnaby Joyce and Tony Windsor.”

Nationals NSW Senate candidate John Williams said he thought the livestock shortage was a widespread problem.

“There were hundreds of thousands of cattle slaughters during the big drought of western NSW and Queensland, now with the rains, people are restocking and wanting to build their herds back up again,” Mr Williams said.

“That is just typical, normal behaviour with graziers when they come out of a very, very long dry spell.

“I know at Scone they’ve wound back shifts, Rockhampton’s the same, and until Spring comes and more steers are fattened, and so on, they may face this problem for a few months.”

Mr Windsor thought the shortage was seasonal and said he was not against the live cattle export trade.

“However, if there is the capacity to use live export cattle at prices that are not detrimental to local producers then we should use them,” Mr Windsor said.

Mr Joyce had not returned our call for a comment at the time of going to press.