NSW cattle Producer John Carter in his regular “Straight Talking” article writes:
I am a fifth generation Australian and as I look at the future for my children and grandchildren I don’t like the way this country is heading.
I believe that the last twenty years has seen the worst Australian Government since federation. Ministers of the main parties come and go but policy on trade has been ruled by the Canberra bureaucrats and the NFF officials on their career paths.
When Howard replaced Keating in 1996 his electioneering featured cartoons of “Keating’s $180 billion debt cartâ€. The debt is now $545 billion. We have had 66 consecutive months of trade deficits during a mineral boom! Canberra doesn’t understand that “When you are in a hole and want to get out of it the first thing to do is to stop diggingâ€.
They have just kept digging with their free trade shovels. We are disappearing under a mountain of debt- $30,000 for every Australian man, woman and child and rising by the month.
Why do we have the second highest interest rates in the OECD ?—because we have to service the second biggest per capita debt in the OECD and unlike the USA, we don’t have the power to claim that ours is the world currency and we can continue to print it with no backing.
New Zealand and Australia are the least protectionist countries in the world. We now import tomatoes from subsidised Italian farmers and all sorts of food from subsidised Communist China.
We have destroyed our manufacturing industry and are well into destroying our agriculture as the orange, milk, sugar industries etc are deregulated or sunk by subsidised US, EU and Chinese farmers.
But isn’t globalisation good for the poor people ? The people of 47 of 50 African countries and much of South and Central America have gone backwards under free trade and US multi national company thuggery. That is why they have sunk the Uruguay WTO negotiations with mass protests by desperate people. That is why the US multinational dominated WTO now meet in isolated centres.
Since John McEwen’s decisive leadership we have had Canberra bureaucrats at DAFF and NFF running a“ free trade and to hell with the consequences†agenda. The policy has decimated our agriculture and manufacturing in antithesis of Pliny’s AD 69 call to Rome “ We must, whatever happens, safeguard the family farmâ€.
When I went to Paris in 1983 on my Churchill Fellowship tour and met with OECD officials they told me that they originally thought that Doug Anthony was joking when he called for them to drop subsidies to farmers. Gradually they have dismissed Australian negotiators as fools as they continued to increase their subsidies with the US following and now China doing the same. We should abolish the calls for the dropping of US and EU subsidies and begin to look after ourselves.
But what about our beef access to the US under the FTA?
We haven’t filled the quota for 5 years and are unlikely to ever fill it again as drought and alternative land use lower our herd. The USA has the right to put on duty if their domestic price falls.
But what about our mineral exports to China?
They have nothing to do with agreements—they are market forces at play. We have no free trade agreement.
If we import half our food from subsidised farmers in EU and China and continue with the current, suicidal immigration policy, it is only a matter of time before we import all our food and have to de-salinate water for all our capitals. Canberra nut cases are running us.
I say “Send anyone who advised Federal Trade Ministers - to a new Office for Sustainability, located in Birdsvilleâ€.
Australia desperately needs drastic change in policy.
Pauline Hanson has shown her courage in standing up for commonsense. Almost all her maiden speech has been implemented by the current Government (whilst some of them organised a prison sentence for her on fraudulent grounds that were subsequently thrown out by the Chief Justice). She has shown that democracy is a very fragile system when thugs take over.
It is ages since the Liberal Party was formed and the Country Party became the Nationals. It is time for a new direction, a United Australia Party.
Pauline Hanson symbolises what Australia needs to survive as an independent nation. Should we get the balance of power in the Senate it will be a great beginning.
I will be working with her all the way.
Editors foot note: John is running for a New South Wales Senate seat on Pauline Hanson’s “United Australia Party” Senate ticket.
Thanks mate. Have you thought about advertising in regional/ Ag papers in other states? The one in South Australia (Stock Journal) has a readership of about 30 000 and is pretty fair in it’s dealings with various organisations and spokesmen regardless of their opinions. I can recommend them highly!
Keep up the great work and thanks for the welcome!
G’day Andrew,
Thanks for the heads up on the Stock Journal - the only problem is that they are owned by Rural Press. As I said we are black banned Australia wide.
Rural press Own the Stock Journal and every major rural paer in Australia, the 5 largest are the Stock Journal, The farm Weekly (WA), The Stock & land (VIC), The Land (NSW), The Queensland Country Life plus another 195 rural & regional publications.
So we’ve done pretty well thanks to our members telling their friends to go from a circulation of 1 to over 13,000 in just under 2 years - and still growing every day. It will keep growing as long as the members think its worth telling others about the community.
Cheers - your Agmate Steve
I’ve started putting the word about already- reckon you blokes have a good thing going here!
Why were you blackbanned by Rural Press? I know some of their papers are little more than a mouth piece for a particular major party, but surely they’re not all toeing the line?
As said, the Stock Journal is a bloody marvellous paper and I’d be surprised if they would refuse you any exposure (hell, they give me room to have a rant so they must be reasonably egalitarian in their attitude!).
Couldn’t hurt to give it a burl mate. Anyway, as said, I’ll keep putting the word around, love to see this thing grow even more!
I’ve come across this site somewhat belatedly but for what it’s worth am suitably impressed. It’s great to see a site devoted to the interests of rural Aussies, run by rural Aussies!
I agree with Sue, Australians need to break with the tradition of sticking with the current crop of politicians, continually giving them a second chance in the hope that they will actually make some decisions in the interests of our own nation.
Yes, there are a couple around making the right noises on some issues (Bob Katter, Joyce), but we’re knobbling them by allowing the current crop of economic rationalist obsessed globalists to outnumber them- they’re little more than the proverbial voices crying in the wilderness….
We need more candidates to speak out for the nation’s food producers, the right of the smaller family farms to actually exist, to take the time to examine exactly what the effects of the endless Free Trade Agreements will be on our nation’s producers and manufacturers, the effect of the myriad of international agreements our governments sign us into will have on our national sovereignty and control of our own resources- the major parties and left wing extremists will not give us this option.
Candidates such as John should be commended for making a stand. Visitors to this site might also be interested in the following websites:
http://www.protectionistsa.com
http://www.protectionist.net
http://www.protectionists.org
G’day Andrew,
Welcome to the Agmates online rural & Regional community. I’m pleased you had found us - but not that belatedly.
Around 21 months ago I started a very basic blog called Agmates with a readership of 1 - me.
Today we have over 10,000 members across Australia and almost 3,000 overseas. We have never advertised (rural press black banned us across Australia after running an ad in the QLD Country Life and The Land) for just 3 weeks. Our growth since then has been just by word of mouth.
Agmates has no political or corporate affiliations. We are totally independent and we are owned by myself and a group of Australian farmers. We are 100% biased towards whats good for rural & regional Australia and make no apologies for that.
Our News and Commentary is not written by professional journalists, instead its written by rural & regional people for rural & regional people.
Our influence in the corridors of power is growing as our number of members grow. We currently have a number of politicians who write articles for us to keep the community up to speed on issues of importance.
Agmates also writes on behalf of rural & regional Australians on the Crikey Environmental blog. Here’s a link to our latest article.
This is a tremendous outlet as it gets rural & regional Australia’s point of view across to 1,000’s of Urban dwellers across Australia.
So please feel free to contribute any articles or information that you think other members of the community will enjoy or find interesting. I’d invite you to join as a member - It’s totally free to become a member which includes our weekly email newsletter also for free.
Welcome aboard and please help us spread the word.
Cheers - Agmates Founder Steve Truman.
Well done John for taking a stand. Pauline has been denigrated by all sorts of people and when you read her maiden speech, it is clearly because she speaks for the people of Australia - not the ones who would dominate us - but those who feed us, who work for us, who are the service industry that keeps the wheels oiled for those who would order us around.
Pauline is apparently the only candidate to political office in Australia who is trying to learn about our land and property ownership rights. She is clearly the only candidate who wants to do the right thing when she gains office.
If people such as yourself are supporting her, this country may have a chance.