Dairy Farmers Need Support

eastAUSmilk has worked tirelessly with the department, processors and active farmers to finalise a plan for the Qld dairy industry.  It will be launched soon and has a range of initiatives for industry productivity, sustainability and growth – but it needs Government buy-in to work.

The plan sets out key priorities for the future to help farmers access new technologies and pastures, improve infrastructure for climate resilience and other strategies to increase productivity and farm gate output.

EAM has asked the Qld Government for support in the next budget, or earlier.  Farmers all read the news that the next budget will be tight, but compared with big ticket items like infrastructure, housing, education and health, our asks are very low cost with high impact. 

The asks relate to extending the popular and effective technology uptake and farm business resilience programs and resources to support implementing the plan and work on new pasture development. 

In total, the ask is only $3 million over 4 years, plus extending and improving access to FBRP – all would agree - a small hand out for a big hand up for dairy. 

EAM and our farmers will continue to work with the new Government to deliver this support.  We commend the Government’s ambitious commitment to increase total Qld agricultural industry total farm gate output to $30 billion by 2030 – and dairy farmers are ready to go to deliver our share. 

Importantly for Queensland, a more productive and sustainable dairy industry delivers in spades for local, regional economies while ensuring Queenslanders can drink more home grown milk. 

Denise Spinks, Government Relations Manager eastAUSmilk

Welcome Denise Spinks

Denise Spinks started recently at eastAUSmilk to replace Mike Smith as government relations manager. Denise has big shoes to fill, but I’m sure with her background, skills and enthusiasm she will fit in fine. Denise is originally from Roma in Queensland and has an affinity with farming and regional areas.

Denise has a long history focused mostly on either working in senior government positions or lobbying government. This is a similar history to Mike and the skills that we are seeking in our government relations manager.

Denise was deputy chief of staff for former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. In addition, she has worked for lobbying companies to lobby many governments including Queensland, NSW and the commonwealth.

Building on relationships with these 3 governments is extremely important for eastAUSmilk.

Denise is very focussed on clearly identifying what is of most importance to dairy farmers and ensuring she is successful in gaining traction with governments in these key areas. Some key areas for Denise will include gaining support and funding from the Queensland government for the Queensland dairy plan and funding for existing eastAUSmilk projects which are key to moving dairy farmers forward with technology adoption and preparing for extreme weather events.

It is important for eastAUSmilk to further build relationships with the NSW government to ensure that we are listened to and our advice to move the industry forward in NSW are supported. Gaining outcomes from the NSW, Queensland and Commonwealth governments for disaster events will always be an important area for dairy farmers. The review of the dairy code and the implementation of the retail code will also be key issues with the commonwealth government.

I wish Denise all the best with her role. Please all dairy farmers welcome her to the team and assist in her role to help you.

Eric Danzi, CEO eastAUSmilk