Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:
In an exclusive interview with Agmates today Independent Federal Member for New England Tony Windsor (pictured) told Agmates:
“Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told me in a meeting in QLD prior to the Federal Election that Labor would retain the Wheat Single Desk marketing arrangement if a majority Australian Wheat Growers wanted it”
Tony intends taking Prime minister Rudd at his word. He has put together “The Wheat Marketing Export Poll” which has been mailed out to 24,000 registered wheat growers across Australia. ( Click here to see Tony’s message and scroll down to see the actual poll)
” Each poll sheet is Tag Coded to make the results verifiable. You can’t photo copy it, or download it from the net. Mr Windsor said”.
The poll form can be returned by fax or post but must be in Mr Windor’s office by the 16th of April.
Tony Windsor said “The poll was mailed out early this week and we already have over 400 polls back. There’s 24,000 gone out and we’ll need to get a large number back for the poll result to be authentic.”
“If the poll shows a clear majority of growers want to retain the single desk, I’ll be taking them to the Senate Inquiry and personally delivering them to Prime Minister Rudd (pictured) and Agriculture Minister Burke.”
I asked Tony why he was doing the poll:
“Not every wheat grower can get to the Senate Inquiry and have their say. The poll gives every single Australian Wheat grower the opportunity to tell the government emphatically what they want. It has become obvious that a lot of misinformation given to the government about what growers want to see happen. So it’s now up to them, they need to complete the poll and get it back to us.”
National’s Senator Barnaby Joyce gave his full support to Tony’s poll when I spoke to him today.
Have your say!
“Have you received your poll in the post? Do you have something you want to say about it?
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Tags: Wheat
Assume single desk management concludes a forward export selling price is $300- per tonne and forward contracts 5 million tonnes and domestic traders set an equivalent of $320- per tonne and purchase wheat.
If the season turns pear shaped, wet, dry, frost etc and the single desk is caught short for a million tonnes it will be the “pool” that will pay the extra $20- and possibly more to fill contracts.
And of course you could have a complete idiot like former Minister McGauran who in July slammed AWB for not forwarding selling into a price that by Sept would have lost $100- per tonne. (Land 12/7/07 and 4/9/07).
What I would like to see in legislation is bankrupt grain traders jailed for life.
Sadly it is over.
John Niven it is not over-we must fight to save our orderly marketing system.
We must have a pool and a buyer of last resort-in other words a single desk system.
Tony’s Windsor’s Poll-growers who have not received a survey form should contact Tony Windsor’s office immediately on ph(02)67613080,fax (02)67613080 and have one posted.
The poll closes on Wednesday 16th April,2008.
I am a single desk marketing system supporter.
The only way it can be viable is to have ALL export wheat in the pool and have a crack marketing team sell on our behalf to the best price customers in bulk or containers.
Now with the last governments deregulation of containerization and failure to support the majority grower wishes and get behind the WEMA model, the merchants and traders have their bodies through the door and the current government has thrown the chains right off.
Its a disgrace. There is now no such thing as democracy where the majority gets their way, only big business and power is the order.
Never before have we seen farmers bitterly infighting for all the wrong reasons. The spin and half truths which have confused the issues will inevitably lead to a loss of family farming in this country.
The individual farmers who help drive the deregulation of the grains industry are seriously selfish self centered and probably locationally advantaged. They have no concept of farming industries/communities away from their comfort zone. They also haven’t worked out that competition is good for consumers which means we the farmers continue to be screwed.
Not only does it mean farmers having to personally average a price for their individual crops when we all cant be experts all of the time, the resentment between farmers that a tonne of grain has no relative value compared to another’s tonne of similar grain. It’s a stupid system.
By the way, our government won’t be topping up the grain price (subsidies) when it falls due to supply /demand factors, and the traders still want their shareholder/company profits.