Chief executive of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, Lach MacKinnon, said Egypt, Philippines and Malaysia are helping pick up the slack for excess cattle, but this still is not the solution to restrictions on heavier cattle.

He said a meatworks in northern Australia would be ideal because the 350kg weight limit is here to stay.

"The Egyptian market's been closed for the last four or five years and it's just reopened in the last 12 months," he said. "They've obviously got cultural and religious reasons that they prefer a live animal. We did send a lot of cattle to Egypt going back 10 years ago now, so that market's reopened again."