There are rock-throwers who periodically accuse the live export trade of being a threat to the only remaining meatworks in northern Australia – the JBS-owned meatworks at Townsville. For example some people who regularly write in to the Townsville Bulletin, bagging the live export trade. Such criticisers clearly need a lesson in basic economics (if the meatworks, feedlots & other buyers paid more for cattle, naturally producers would sell to them rather to live export buyers).
But I’d like to suggest some new targets to all those in local, state and federal politics, who are concerned about employment and ensuring the ongoing production of good quality food in sufficient quantities to feed Australia’s population and earn vital export income. For example:
- Raising awareness of the potential downside for consumers and producers, of the Federal Government’s decision to allow the importation of beef from countries that have had an outbreak of BSE (mad cow disease).
- Ensuring CSIRO funding is actually increased, rather than decreased, and regional CSIRO facilities are upgraded rather than closed, as has been the habit in recent years.
- The millions of dollars from the sale of the exceedingly valuable Department of Primary Industries land at Oonoomba (on the banks of the Ross River in Townsville) should be completely reinvested in DPI facilities in north Queensland. I.e. spent on acquiring a sufficiently large acreage to allow the running of research herds and crop growing (as is the case at present), and good quality buildings are built and fitted out – on the outskirts of Townsville (not in southern Qld). Rather than the ridiculous add-on they’ve proposed to put onto James Cook University (JCU) land, along with the CSIRO. Surely there’s nothing more important than good quality food production research facilities, and maintaining a large scale, dedicated DPI facility in the Queensland tropics is sensible?
- What is the ‘Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation’? Oh that’s the Department that also now contains the Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries. This is probably one of Anna Bligh’s most idiotic and absolutely stupid moves – words fail me. And from what I’ve been hearing in recent months, DPI staff are not impressed, and numbers have left. Why on earth has the DPI been jammed into this other department? Why?
- Accurate food of original labelling. ‘Contains products from Australia and other countries’ is not good enough. Where exactly are all the ingredients from? Everything should be clearly labelled, so consumers can make choices based on honest information. And no more deliberately misleading label designs and names, such as Woolworth’s ‘Great Lakes’ tinned fruit, clearly imitating Australia brands such as Ardmona, though the fruit inside is actually grown in China.
- Misleading materials labelling ought to be banned. For example, ‘faux suede’, ‘synthetic leather’ and ‘leather look’ shoes – titles used to imply the use of environmentally friendly and sustainable leather when it is in fact more material made from our finite fossil fuel resources. If it is plastic, then manufacturers should be required by law to call it plastic.
- The Coles/Woollies food retail duopoly and disproportionately high middle-men profit margins. Why are farmers flat out getting a few dollars for a box of first-rate cucumbers, when there is a market glut, and the supermarkets still get away with charging customers several dollars for each cucumber? (Rather than dropping the price, increasing consumption, and thus increasing the price by cranking up demand.) (It was tragic how many consumers fell for the Woolworths Drought Aid corporate image marketing. If Woollies genuinely want to help Australian farmers, then they can a) stop flogging the stuff that pretends to be Australian-grown b) ensure everything they sell is clearly and honestly labelled with country/countries of origin [otherwise, refuse to stock it], and b) pay suppliers more.
- If Australians want farmers to implement more conservation measures, then they must be prepared to chip in to help fund such measures. Either by paying higher prices for their food (which is already ridiculously cheap) or through taxes. And the reintroduction of intelligent self-help financial schemes, such as the old Income Equalisation Deposit [I.E.D.] scheme. I fall about laughing every time I hear someone whine about the ‘high’ cost of food, then shortly after bag farmers for not looking after the land. (Usually these whiners live lives that are exceedingly un-environmentally friendly themselves, with gardens full of exotic plants and feral bird and animal species, and habits that involve high consumption, high energy use and low recycling rates etc – but that’s another story.)
- There must be action on preventing the last of Australia’s sparse good quality agricultural land from being turned into yet more acres of bricks, tiles and bitumen. Particularly in the Sydney region. (The Sydney region produces 40% of New South Wales’ vegetables, for example.)
- And an equally vital issue – the prevention of the destruction of long-term food producing land for short-term mining profits (often profits that head straight overseas into foreign ownership coffers, just to add insult to injury). At present some of Australia’s best agricultural land is in the throes of being desecrated – for example in NSW in the Hunter Valley’s Singleton region and the beautiful summer/winter crop growing blacksoil country near Quirindi; and Haystack Plain and Arcadia Valley in southern and central Queensland. And north western Queensland cattle country has unchecked and virtually untreated environmental damage occurring to waterways that run into the pristine commercial fishing area – the Gulf of Carpentaria. Most of this damage is due to leaking tailings dams. The mining bond system is clearly a failure – state and federal governments must get serious with requirements for sufficiently large mining company bonds that will cover environmental damage not just while the mine is operational, but long after it has been abandoned.
- Intelligent decentralisation measures. For example, increasing the Remote Area Tax Rebate scheme so it is an amount that accurately reflects the greater cost of living in rural & remote regions, rather than the pitiful joke that it is now. Ensuring that new arrivals spend at least the first 10 years in Australia, living in regional areas (and I don’t mean Katoomba or Ipswich!).
What the newspaper letter writers apparently don’t understand, is that primary production businesses aren’t charities being run for the benefit of meatworks owners or employees, or for the benefit of the Australian public – including verandah sitters whose prime talent is throwing rocks at others. Even the poorest quality agricultural land in the most remote regions now has a real estate value instead of a business-related value. Most primary producers would be far better off financially if they invested their capital and sat back watching the interest roll in (rather than out). Talk about biting the hand that feeds them.