Dairying meets new Minister
eastAUSmilk’s President Joe Bradley and Government Relations Manager Mike Smith had an upbeat meeting with the new Queensland Minister for Primary Industries Tony Perrett last week.
We had taken care to keep him in the loop on major issues for the Queensland dairy industry through 2024 while he was Shadow Minister, and to build a positive working relationship with him and his Chief of Staff.
The new Minister was keen to hear about the status of the Queensland dairy plan (a draft almost ready to go out to the industry for final consultation) and other issues of concern to dairy farmers.
One thing noted by all of us is the consistency between the new government’s agriculture policy and the draft dairy plan – there’s major overlap, including the government commitment to harnessing emerging technologies, exploring new and innovative ways to improve on farm productivity and profitability, investment in industry-led best management practice programs, and growing Queensland’s farm output.
In addition to their agriculture policy commitments, the new Premier has written to Tony, advising that the Minister is expected to ensure the long-term future of traditional primary industries – which of course eastAUSmilk noted to the Minister includes the dairy industry.
Minister Perrett has been to many dairy farms as a beef farmer, local government councillor, Member of Parliament for Gympie, and Shadow Minister, but we invited him to visit a dairy farm as our guest for a briefing about farm issues, in his new Ministerial capacity. He’ll take us up on the offer once we all get past Christmas.
Tony has spent his entire time in Parliament since 2015 in Opposition, and not only has to get used to being much better able to get things done, he’s part of a government which committed to a very hectic “first 100 days” agenda.
There are no primary industry promises in that list, but as a Minister he still has to scrutinise all of the implementation proposals as they are developed.
Joe Bradley eastAUSmilk President