I'm struggling a little to remain current with the blog and still thoroughly cover the St Martins Lutheran Child Abuse issue, all while not putting people off with too much information, so I refer to the recent dairy farmers march/meeting held in Murray Bridge.
First stop...some unpleasant and fundamental realities, namely the world has its eyes on Australia and its hooks in our politicians; it is an absolute outrage that our political parties are openly promoting and literally selling Australia to other countries.
Water and food security are issues that we are not immune from, but our politicians are willingly ignorant to what other countries are clearly doing when buying up chunks of Australia - they are suring up domestic supplies back where-ever...and they cannot be blamed for that...I'd do it.
However, it doesn't take a rabid conspiracy theorist to see a pattern of behaviors and 'unfortunate market conditions' and 'a very high Aussie dollar Coshi'...blah, blah, blah, that make 'Australia' vulnerable.
Internally, our Free Trade commitment is absolute policy lunacy and seems far more like an excuse to betray, undermine, and destroy Australian industry and production, which once destroyed can all be carved up and sold to Labor mates and foreign governments.
Nobody else on the planet gives a damn about genuine Free Trade commitments so why would we repeatedly engage in this self-defeating stupidity...ask dairy farmers about getting deliberately tricked into a vulnerable position with empty promises of improved profits in a 'de-regulated market'.
Look at what happened to Kimberley Clark after Labor allowed imports of heavily subsidised toilet paper from Indonesia; why the hell would we be importing potentially diseased apples from New Zealand? etc.
As a 'consumer' rather than a 'producer', it is easy for me to be flippant about the atrocious corporate behaviour of the main supermarkets when it comes to their 'negotiations' with primary producers and/or suppliers.
No-one who is even vaguely interested in the subject needs the realities explained to them again because the inequity of the Retailer/producer relationship is immediately and glaringly obvious; I refer to my previous post and the example of bananas.
When Cyclone Yazi flattened Queensland, supermarkets were selling bananas at around $15 per kilo (currently around $3-4 p/k).
If the Retailers were really interested in the welfare of the producers and their customers, they would have subsidised and discounted bananas to encourage sales, and recovered the losses elsewhere, as they currently do with many lines; it's how they can afford to be so cheap on specific items at specific times.
Because of their size they can access items 'out of season' and/or in bulk, and supply them relatively cheaply to consumers, even selling at a loss, because they can carry those losses across their many other lines, stores, and products, eg petrol sales, liquor stores, etc.
Another point: Woolworths must not be allowed to sell alcohol through their supermarkets directly, and any winery that is thinking of getting involved with them should look at how dairy farmers are treated... appallingly.
I completely reject this latest stunt by Woolworths in Queensland where it claims to have established a special deal with a small number of farmers, promoted with some incoherent and unsupportable justification that this helps all dairy farmers.
Cue that goat named...you guessed it...Judas. This is the whole Judas Goat approach whereby a select few get priviliged treatment legislatively, financially, etc, and are then used 'against' those who don't 'get with the new program' and/or fail because of the atrocious current conditions, etc.
Here's a crazy idea; don't do the solely self-serving $1 per litre for milk, charge $1.30 and give 20c of that to dairy farmers....problem solved. Whatever the current shelf price, charge slightly more and give two thirds of that to producers.
Whoa there now...no wonder some people see me as a craaaaaazy troublemaker....what an outrageous suggestion...all Australians pay a still very reasonable price, the Retailer gets 10c p/l more, and the farmer gets a more sustainable rate at the gate mate....ANARCHY....
Given their current behaviours and the effect it has for producers, the major retailers cannot argue that they act in the interests of the industry, and they need to change that attitude, and it is just as simple as I have described above.
Tomorrow: Whimsical Weatherill's Words of Wisdom on Wind Turbines
or Gay Jay Say Hey They A OK (and, no that is not some sort of allegation or slur, I use 'gay' in its old world connotation of 'happy', 'whimsical', etc)
(What witty illiteration-Ed.)
This Arvo: Removed Posts and De-Sal Plants, etc.
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