Federal Labor Government – a new beginning or continuing decline?

With a newly installed Federal Government comes newly appointed Ministers who will be briefed by their policy advisors. The public service and departmental heads will provide briefings as to how their policies can be implemented. With it, industry bodies will seek meetings to put their member's views forward and ensure their positions are given appropriate consideration. 

During the election, agricultural policy was announced in the broad brush but as always, the 'devil is in the detail'.

Labor have announced changes to the agricultural visa scheme. They intend a renewed focus towards to the Pacific to increase farm labour.

Promises have been made to increase biosecurity funding to help prevent Lumpy Skin & Foot and Mouth diseases breaching our borders, with the continuing outbreaks in Indonesia. Diseases which threaten livestock industries.

These holistic issues are of most immediate concern to farmers, especially within dairy and we welcome these commitments.

However, other immediate matters also need to be considered and addressed.

Dairy Australia's latest situation and outlook report highlights the increasing input costs that dairy farmers are facing. Fertiliser, fodder, fuel and grain prices doubled in price over the past 12 months, placing undue pressure on dairy farmers to continue to survive within the dairy industry. Dairy farmers on the Atherton Tablelands, for instance, are facing some of the highest fodder costs with an average of $350 a tonne for pasture hay.

These harsh imposts are contributing to the decline in the number of dairy farmers across the dairy States, especially where the farm-gate price being received is not equal to their costs of production. Hence the real need for supermarkets to increase the price of home-brand milk to a minimum of $2/L. In turn, processors must guarantee to pass these gains back to the farmers in their milk price.

The Labor election commitment to convene a dairy symposium is a positive and proactive step.

It will enable the dairy industry to consider ways in which to stop the decline of dairy farms and provide solutions to ensure a future for generation of dairy farmers to come.

The symposium will enable dairy representatives, from dairy farmers to supermarkets, to address a vast and complex number of issues which were identified in numerous recent parliamentary and ACCC reports. These include the dairy mandatory code, input costs, 'truth in labelling', market failure to name but a few of the issues.

The symposium may not be the panacea, but it will help crystallise the ongoing issues and the way in which we need to find a collaborative solution. Otherwise, the dairy industry we know today, which itself requires strong positive change, will be very different to the industry that will or will not exist in the future.

Shaughn Morgan – eastAUSmilk Co-CEO