Fed: Labor calls on govt to hold dairy summit

AAP General News (Australia)
02-13-2001
Fed: Labor calls on govt to hold dairy summit

By Karen Polglaze

CORAKI, NSW, Feb 13 AAP - The Howard government must call an immediate summit of stakeholders
in the dairy industry after it mishandled deregulation of the milk market, Opposition
leader Kim Beazley said today.

Mr Beazley said farmers were bleeding but the government had put up a one-size-fits-all
package that failed to meet the needs of dairy producers.

Speaking during a visit to the dairy farm of Malcolm and Leonie Sky, Mr Beazley called
for more resourcing of the dairy adjustment authority so farmers could quickly access
funds to change their operations.

Labor would immediately set up a task force headed by its agriculture spokesman Gavan
O'Connor to consult with the industry and report to Mr Beazley by the end of April.

He said if Labor won the federal election due later this year, it would review the
deregulation program and establish a consultative committee.

"(The government) is clearly going to do nothing, they are going to shift the burden
to the states," Mr Beazley told reporters.

"This is the way you restructure when you have no concern either for the future of
the industry or for the people who are actually working in it."

Mr Beazley also criticised allocation of industry readjustment funds, saying they should
go directly to milk producers.

"Currently it is being spent on polocrosse fields, on wine appreciation courses," he said.

"It should go to the farmers."

Mr Sky, who has tripled milk production over the past two years to almost a million
litres annually, said dairy deregulation had happened too quickly.

"We should have had time to plan and there should have been some sort of system in
place to allow us to phase into a deregulated environment," he told reporters.

Despite tripling production, Mr Sky said the farm was just breaking even.

He believed his business would survive but he needed time to expand in order to ensure
that future.

About 20 per cent of the estimated 300 dairy farmers in the district had gone out of
business since deregulation, he said.

A review of the dairy deregulation program by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture
and Resource Economics (ABARE) found hundreds of farmers in New South Wales and Queensland
had gone out of business since the program's introduction.

Milk prices had dropped slightly but that was more likely due to competition among
supermarkets, ABARE said.

Mr Beazley is on a four-day pre-election campaign in several marginal and national
party-held seats in northern NSW.

AAP kjp/eg/daw/mjm/br

KEYWORD: DAIRY BEAZLEY

2001 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.