Disputur, that’s if the farmers actually receive the increases to cover their increased costs…not with present NCP and government/corporate collaboration they won’t…so who will be left to feed you? Check out how inefficient the corporates are with food-production and water usage…not very efficient or environmentally-friendly at all!

Dunart…the ‘greens’ need to re-dye their colours…and we should be looking harder at all of the parties and groups who talk-the-talk but don’t walk-the-walk…some are of the opinion that obsessively attacking farmers equates to the only environmental credentials they need…short-sightedness that also suggests they think milk originates from the drink-machine at Coles.

The "greens" are becoming increasingly more dependent on the corporate $'s for funding their campaigns too...enough said.

Interesting that in Great Britain the largest percentage of retail holding is 16pc…in Australia under National (destruction of Australian) Competition Policy, Coles and Woolworths hold well over 80% of the market share…any wonder Walmart and other transnational retailers want a piece of that action…

KAEP has put it well…

‘And this whole water debate should sound alarm bells to this nation about impending media MONOPOLY legislation. Monopolies already extend well into the internet safety valve with acquisitions of major search engines and meeting sites and if corporations get the Press we are all going to be easily led to the corporate shearing sheds and abbatoirs.

Lucky Country? Only if you stand and be counted.’

I don’t believe we can blame NCP and government/corporate collaboration as the problem.

The real problem is that policies such as “NCP and government/corporate collaboration” are selectivity applied due to urban pressure to maintain a very high wage growth in the urban areas, regardless of the ability on the world, country or agriculture to sustain it.
My link in a post above demonstrates what happens when you get one sided govt intervention in the market place. This is that wage’s in relation to the oil price is better today then it was in the 79 to 81 period.
I have not done the figures for water, but I would be surprised if it cost less of a % of AWE to buy water today than it has in the past.
This is all as a result of govt regulation in favour of our urban areas.

May be if we had “REAL FREE TRADE” for the urban incomes like we have in the regional sector incomes, we would have quite different outcomes now.
This would be that water and oil are becoming increasingly scarce, as the relation ship between water/oil and AWE changes to give the message that we need to reduce consumption.

These are methods already in use in the regional sector, and they work well.
Applying this policy only to the income side and not the expenses side is a major regional problem.

The proof is in the fact that if we adopted “REAL” free trade tomorrow, regional Australia would hardly notice any difference in their income, but the urban areas would suffer extremely as their regulated world was taken away.

How can it be fair that a sector of the economy has to derive an income from selling to the much lower paid factory workers of the world, yet have many restrictions, both natural and artificial placed on their personal and business expenses?

Apply the “demand/supply” market to water (and the rest of the economy) and the shortage will be looked at in a totally different light.

The act of discrimination is alive and well in Australia.

Thanks for the HSC Economics heads up Dunnart.

When the Government has its back to the wall they will always bring out the WAGE issue to scare the bejesus out of electors.

Sorry it hasn't worked.

The main jobs in Urban areas are service jobs. Free Trade will not affect these jobs or wages while our minerals exports are booming. Further, Kim Beasly noted last week that Howard had turned his back on manufacturing in Australia and this is largely correct.

And anyway, the Federal government's use of the immigration tool to depolarise electorates in big cities also provides greater cometition and lowering of real wages in all urban areas, particularly Sydney by a ratio around 4:1 to the rest of Australia. IOW Howard has shot himself in the foot with wages.

4797

Dunart, re: wages v’s oil price…big difference in the same calculation of agricultural commodities in relation to almost every input cost factor they have,including fuel.

Australia’s reality is that we have the smallest manufacturing sector in the developed world, save places like Greece…no,I’m not joking. That’s compliments of National (destruction-of-all-things-Australian) Competition Policy…we are the only fools left on that Free Trade – Level-Playing-Field…everyone else saw what we did to our farmers, manufacturers, small businesses, etc. and they didn’t want to play…so their subsidies continue while our fellow Australians (mostly in rural and regional Australia) suffer irreparable damage as a result.

Manufacturing industries like Austoft…designers and builders of world-famous cane-harvesters, etc…closed down as a DIRECT result of NCP and deregulation…and have now moved to Brazil to become Braztoft and sell their harvesters back to Australia…not so good for the balance of payments figures…government folly and short-sightedness at its most obvious. The ‘victims’ are piled so high, they’re competing with Everest. Foreigners shake their heads in disbelief that we inflict such folly on our own residents and then demand they compete with massively-subsidised-product in all of our competitor nations. …and Peter McGauran’n’Co’re ‘surprised’ that other nations refuse to do the same back home…

One sell-out ‘Free Trade Agreement’ after another and still they have learned NOTHING but how to pander to foreign-governments and transnational-corporates, sending still more of our profits overseas…you don’t have to be Einstein to calculate our current account deficit leaves us somewhat behind-the-eight-ball…

If governments believe that the world will accept ‘Free Trade’ anytime soon…they’ve lost the plot.

IR reforms attempt to reduce real wages to ‘compete’ with the international market too…so should our workers accept $4/day or even $4/hr?

KAEP,service-industries are also in line for this NCP agenda…we should all be aware that there are already many ‘service-contracts’ being ‘filled’ overseas.

The health sector is currently being flooded with overseas-service-providers,doctors,nurses,etc. as a direct result of inappropriate government and departmental cost-cutting and policy-failures in the past…top-heavy, over-paid-administration with insufficient productive-medical-staff.

Brazilian-meat-workers are currently employed in Mackay cheaply…under contract...despite the ‘local’ mining boom…they live crammed into expensive,over-crowded,rental-accommodation...countless other examples...