Too right. There are still industry pockets and those on the loony far left who want to drag Australia back to high tariffs, high protectionist policies of the 50s and 60s.

Australia's economy would have been rocked by the Asian currency crisis and the GFC if we had those antiquated policies. We can thank Keating for modernising the economy and Howard for building upon Keating's idea.

Even so, we need to do much more to help apple growers and their like. Help them find new markets. Oz apples are great. People all over the world will want to buy them.

Australia does not need imported diseases and third world wages.

Philo,

I know we take our rivalry with New Zealand seriously, but calling them "third world" is a bit rich.

Most of Australian agriculture manages to be internationally competitive without resort to trade barriers. We'd be better off if horticulture did the same.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12538#216688

Philo, i am with you.

BTW, i think the sport analogy is great but completely the wrong way around.

Recent olympics, other international sporting events have found athletes taking drugs, they were stripped of medals & banned from future competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc5E6pvDv2Y&feature=channel_video_title

Everybody in favour of globalised free trade must be tried for economic treason, sent to a labour camp for life.

Lots of talk about how agriculture should “meet the market” , it’s called globalising.
I cannot understand how if you totally globalise the income of a industry and not the business cost of the same industry how it is expected to survive?

Globalising is not the problem, but “selective globalisation” and the agriculture always seems to get the raw deal.

What would the outcome for agriculture be, if the same rules applied to the income side were applied to the cost side if the industry?
My guess is a very competitive, productive, environmentally sensitive agriculture sector.
In fact I will go so far as saying, the future of agriculture under the present rules, i.e. regulated costs and globalised income, has a bleak and short term future.
Sad but true and I would rather be predicting positive outcomes for the industry, but the predictions and hugs finical stress I have been making over the last 20 years keep coming true.