Clive Hamilton is right to tell farmers that if the land can't support them they should get off - http://www.abc.net.au/rural/vic/stories/s706548.htm. (I seem to be agreeing with Clive Hamilton's Australia Institute a lot at the moment). And the PM's claim that losing farmers from the land would damage the national psyche http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1765679.htm.

I'd say it would benefit the national psyche because farmers are the last industry group to be feather-bedded. Why should manufacturing, mining and service industries have to compete on a level playing field while bad farmers are propped-up by government grants?

If the government got out of the way those farmers who are properly capitalised and can manage their land would gobble-up the poorer farmers. In the end this would make our farming land much more productive.

So basically you are saying that the big landholders should be allowed to gobble up the small ones. I hate Globalisation. Big conglomerates with too much money eating up all the mom and pop enterprises. Where is itgoing to end? With the whole World living under a Mocrosoft or McDonalds banner?

I don't think farmers should be propped up with drought relief every time the inevitable happens. I'm more of the mind that a longterm solution should be looked at. I've posted about nuclear desalination before. Now that Nuclear Power is definitely going to become a part of our future energy supply we should look at increasing the number of desalination plants.

Desalination is very energy intensive. Until now a large increase in the number of desalination plants would have mean't an increase in coal burning or gas power plants. Gas is a lot cleaner than coal but nuclear is cleaner still. Zero CO2 output. The amount of energy a single nuclear plant can put out is incredible. Sydney and it's surrounding cities could rely on a single plant to meet its energy needs.

With all that ocean around us and salty artesian bore water waiting to be desalinated we could forget about the cities drying up and the farmers could take all of the excess.

Recycling is very noble and all but you can't recycle what you haven't got.

Yes. Howard goes all emotional and funny about the eyes when he mentions the-man-on-the-land. Clive Hamilton said on AM this morning that he thinks it is all to do with the myth about the connection of all Australians to the land. Myth it certainly is, and if farmers can't make a go of it, they should find another occupation, just as anybody else has to. Sentimental claptrap is no substitute for common sense and good management.

The hand-outs would go only to farms, not the many small businesses who support them and who carry their debts "until the wool cheque" arrives.

It wouldn't just be bigger farmers Wayne. It would also be new entrants into the industry, and the guy or gal who own the farm next door or down the road who want to get bigger.

You might not like big farmers, but one of the historical problems on the land has been too many small farmers - look at all the failed soldier settlements.

There's a balance to be struck. An effective market where people aren't locked out of purchasing more land because existing landholders are subsidised to stay put is the best way of striking that balance.

What Male Cow Droppings. This "subsidy" is to give farmers, with no work, on their farms, or in their district, access to the DOLE equivalent.
Now I realise that for many, this should only be available to the "down trodden workers", & the city bludgers, but its time, for a bit of equity. Time for a bit of bush generated wealth to flow back to where it came from.

For the whole country its less than half what Queensland wants, to subsidise just the people of Ipswich. Yes, to build a road so they can get to work in Brisbane. Do I hear you say, "let them work at home, or go without"? If not, why not? Whats the bl@@dy difference? They are both living in the wrong place right now, but that may change. It will rain, & the government may move its offices out to where the workers come from. Fat chance of the latter I suppose, takes some sence to think of that.

Why is it, that some of the sector that holds its hand out the furtherst, & hardest, academia, hates to see any real worker get a bit? Less for them?

Of course farmers should be given support, heck $200 bucks a week is not a fortune and because of the drought they have no job.

But lets treat everybody equally, you know mutual obligation, lets be creative what "work for the dole" schemes could they do?

Can't have these farm bludgers sitting on their bums doing nothing. Maybe a TAFE course in water divining, then they could be called apprentices.

Of course they may have to walk 100 kilometers a fortnight to put the forms in.

There are no shortage of jobs, maybe they could get the $5000 to move to Perth.

Yse they need help, but shouldn't they be treated equally?

Dear Hasbeen, the dole shouldn't be available to people who have businesses that they are still running. It's there for you when you don't have a source of income. If my business can't make a go of it, I sell-up what I can and look for a job, and if I can't get one, then I get the dole. So, let the farmers sell-up before they access dole funds, or borrow and hope things turn-up, like the rest of us do.

I also find it hard to define a road as a subsidy. The Ipswich Motorway brings traffic into Brisbane from all the rural areas west of Ipswich as well as commuters, transports from interstate and goods from the industrial areas. If you want to look for roads that don't earn their keep you'd be more likely to find some in rural ones than busy arterials in metropolitan areas.

Here, here, Hasbeen!

It’s a simple little world you live in GrahamY. Just what do you think will happen to these displaced farmers? Move them into the city and put them on the dole?

Don’t try and confuse people by calling it farm subsidies. The US, and European countries have subsidies. Australia is one of the few countries that doesn’t prop up its farmers. Drought Relief, is the same amount as the dole, nothing more, and only available for a rather short, specified amount of time. Not easy to get either, unlike the dole.

‘feather bedded’ ‘bad farmers’ It’s a drought for gods sake. Our barley crop this year has failed because of drought, does that make me a bad farmer? Our property is in one of the most fertile areas of NSW, definitely not marginal. I some how could have managed that better?

PF
I understand you feelings but why is your situation different to workers who no longer have jobs in manufacturing industries?

They were good workers, could not have done their work any better yet still had no work through no fault of their own.

Why should farmers be treated differently and yes they are being given favourable treatment. Payment equivalent to the dole, fair enough. $10,000 off farm income not included in income test, interest rates subsidies.

When you consider that 80% of Australia’s agricultural production is exported and that agriculture uses 67% of the nations water maybe we have to consider a radical change in our agricultural practices.

Yes Steve, and those workers walk away with their paid entitlements and go on the dole until something else comes along. No waiting period even if you did get a nice redundancy package. They could sit on the dole for 12 months or more, what time frame is the farmer given for his assistance?

No responsibilities either for the industry they were employed in. Just walk out and leave the mess for the receivers to deal with. I little different for a farmer don’t you think?

You forgot to mention that funds from any sales of livestock must me deposited into term deposits, or farm management plans.

We are talking about a drought here that will end. Our farming land hasn’t been nuked or something and no longer workable. Farmers have gone through years of this without assistance. Things have to be pretty rough for a farmer to be given the drought subsidy for what, 6 months?

PF, if my business wasn't strong enough to carry me for $10,000 a year for a year or two it's not a business worth hanging on to.

And I wouldn't be using the Europeans as models of how to manage farming. They're the ones who've created the various rural commodity lakes and mountains, and make it hard for honest farmers who don't look for community subsidies to make a living, including many Australian farmers, not to mention those in the third world.

"No waiting period even if you did get a nice redundancy package. They could sit on the dole for 12 months or more, what time frame is the farmer given for his assistance?"

Totally untrue:

You usually do not get paid for the first week of Newstart Allowance. This is called the 'ordinary waiting period'. Other waiting periods apply if you:

are a newly arrived resident
have a reasonable money available to you (liquid assets)
have been doing seasonal, intermittent or contract work, or
have moved to an area where you have less chance of finding work, or
have received or are entitled to receive leave or redundancy payments from an employer.

All I am saying is where is the fairness, if you are not a farmer you cannot get ANY payment until you have NO money and you have liquidated all of your assets.

Farmers get their payments as long as EC are in place.

Is it fair for other people to have to be reduced to being penniless before they can get payments

GrahamY – re the Europeans and farm subsidies – that was my point. I class myself as one those honest farmers and agree with that statement whole heartedly :) Australian farmers are not propped up by government subsidies and work damn hard to compete with cheap imports.

As for you other comment re $10000, don’t think I quite understand what you are trying to say.

Steve you seem to be so welfare literate. How many farmers on drought assistance are we talking? Compared to others on welfare of course.

PF

I just check facts before I post, see www.centrelink.gov.au

It is irrelevant how many people get what payment. I was commenting on the fairness of treating farmers as a special category of Australian.

$444 million in subsidies for the sugar industry. Is that not being propped up by Govt. subsidies?

Your arguement has to be more than I work damned hard, tell that to BHP workers who lost their livelyhood when BHP closed the mills in Newcastle.

I am just asking the question "why should farmers be treated as a special industry"?

Can you answer my question?

"why should farmers be treated as a special industry"?

That is just your opinion Steve, my answer is I dont agree with you. Iam a farmer and I certainly dont get any 'special' treatment.

Well, but they ARE getting special treatment - come the next recession, will you see the Government stepping in saying "exceptional circumstances" to the many small businesses crumbling?

Why does this government want most people to look after themselves (cf workchoices, mutual obligation), but farmers are exempt?

Could we perhaps look at a voluntary land buy back in marginal areas, setting the purchase price as perhaps SOMETHING LIKE market value plus half again? Straight market value is unfair when you are asking people to leave because of circumstances which lower the value of their property.

I must admit to being a little surprised at the general vehemence of the raw-in-tooth-and-claw capitalists that have turned up here to take a free whack at the farmers.

There are a some things in life that we can, if we put our mind to it, do without. A Toyota SUV, for example, or a Panasonic wide-screen HDTV (I'm guessing at the latter) could conceivably be classed as unnecessary to the general ebb and flow of our lives.

Food, on the other hand, is somewhat more basic.

As far as I am aware - and I am not just a townie, but an inner-city townie - farming is by nature cyclical. Some days you're swamped with product - and the price is correspondingly low - and some days you can't grow a thing (drought, flood, locusts). At that time the price is sky-high, but useless to you because you ain't got nothing to sell.

So if you live in a society that needs food, you learn to take the good with the bad, and pay the price for shortage as willingly as you pay the pittance for the surplus.

If you killed off the industry in its bad years, the market would be taken over by imports - not just for the duration of the shortage, but forever, because there will in future be no local competition.

By all means, allow importation of bananas while our own crops recover. But at the same time, give the local guys a hand in re-establishing themselves, so that we can retain just a measure of independence from being held economic hostage for our daily bread.

I don't particularly care if Lexus refuse to send us any more SUVs, but I'd hate to have to make political concessions to a foreign power just because I felt it necessary to kill off drought-affected, temporarily uneconomic farms.

But while I am here - who did get the benefit of $12 per kilo bananas? Can't they send some of their windfall (sorry) profits to the drought-stricken?

Good point Pericles. I was leaning towards the Stuff the Farmers argument but you've persuaded me in the other direction.

The only objection I have left is that we should save the farmers simply because they're some kind of national treasure. According to that logic convicts should also be considered cultural icons and similarly revered.

The price of imports may be lower right now but there's no guarantee they'll stay that way. In Pericles' picture we'd be insuring ourselves against reliance on an unpredictable international market. Maybe next year we'll get all the rain and our trading partners will have droughts.

Maybe part of the deal should be some kind of time limit - how long a drought can be considered a special circumstance before it has to be considered the new state of affairs.

pericles

I think you missed my point. Surely we should treat people the same, the guy who fixes tractors in a rural town is as much in the "brown stuff" as the farmer up the road yet he gets the same treatment as a surf bum in byron bay.

80% of Australia's agricultural produce is exported. In PF's case he/she grows barley. I assume the majority of this goes to feed lots to fatten cattle for export.

I am not saying farmers should not get help, but maybe they should look at how others are treated and have some sympathy for others who have their own exceptional circumstances.

Ok to add my 5c worth, which will take more then 1 post :)

Once again this is not a black and white debate, but many
shades of gray. A farmer needs to be in drought for 2 years,
to receive anything. I actually agree that some interest rate
subsidies are going to the wrong people. Its the farmers who
bought the most machinery, the most next door farms at the
highest prices, who did not put away for a rainy day etc.
They have the highest debts, the more conservate, smaller
farmers often the least, so don't get those subsidies.

A question: Steve, if I own a house in the city, can I still
receive the dole? After how many weeks of no income, can
I receive it?

Next point: If Graham wants the free market to operate ok,
but let it be free. Nobody can predict droughts very accurately
yet, but many farmers have gone broke, trying to feed too many
livestock through droughts. Processors make a killing from
droughts, as with limited slaughter capacity, farmers having
to sell, they are caught between a rock and a hard place
and have to accept whatever price is offered. Many try to
feed through, which is their mistake. Yet any meatworks could
double capacity by adding another shift, so increasing demand,
which would lift prices to farmers. The only thing holding that
back is Govt legislation, limiting Filipino and Chinese workers
being flown in for a few months. So Govt policy is one reason
for farmers needing subsidies. Free up the market as you claim
to believe and there would be no need!

Graham Y, busy arterial metropolitan roads earn their keep. You've got to be kidding. For those roads to earn their keep, first of all the bl@@dy city has to earn its keep.
If it weren't for the taxes pooring into the city, to pay for the public servants, & their offices, the major hospitals, the major education institutions, & the publicly funded cultural industry, the city would collapse.
Where do those taxes come from? Try mining & agriculture, & tourism. Even a large percentage of the private sector jobs are riding on the back of products produced in the bush.
Now you not only want our water, you want to have its provision to be subsidised by the Connanwealth.
I can imagine what you would say if your tap was dry. How much louder would you yell if you still had to pay your water rates, even though the tap was dry.
I'm crazy you say? A mate,[farmer] of mine has paid $15,000 a year, irrigation charges, for the last 2 years, but has not recieved one bl@@dy drop of water. Some subsidy

PF,

Good to see someone actually affected come in on the discussion. We hear a lot of opion from you blokes about how the city slickers don't have a clue about your problems. Well, old son, that works both ways, I'm afraid. I was brought up in the country, and worked in the family business. I remember very well how farmers thought they had special priviledges that the non-farming community did not have when it came to paying their bills - IN GOOD TIMES. You seem to think that, still.

You need to come to grips with the real world the rest of us have always lived in. If you can't cut the mustard in farming, you need to try something else. Farming is now a riskier business than it ever was. The good managers will survive. It sounds as though you will not, without taxpayer funded welfare.

Pericles, the argument isn't about having farming and not having farming, it is about who gets to operate the farms. When you sell most farms, it is to another farmer. PF your confusing personal assets with business assets. If the farmer wants to sell everything but the home paddock and then go and look for a job, I have no problem with them getting the dole.

Yabby, I suspect your argument assumes that demand for beef is completely elastic and that if there is twice the beef available at half the price we will eat twice as much beef per capita. It doesn't operate like that, so increasing the number of abbatoirs isn't going to solve the farmers' problem. Having said that, I've got some sympathy with the proposition that we ought to allow temporary immigrants from the South Pacific to work here. It will help our labour shortage, their need for income, and probably stabilise some of their societies, giving them a better standard of living, and improving our security.

Hasbeen, what would you do without the cities? Who would you sell your produce to and through, and who would provide you with the goods that you consume? I know that farmers often say the city dwellers are parasites on them, but man cannot live on bread alone, or beef. We all contribute to this country.

Graham, I'm only from the bush, I was not bl@@dy silly enough to even think about making a living on the land. I was a production engineer. I only bought a farm after I retired, & do not expect it to earn more than the rates.
The farmer has somehow missed his share of the wealth enjoyed by most Australians.
When I worked for General Motors, the income from selling 7 cows would buy a new ute. You've got to sell 25 now to get that new ute.
I went through uni with a kid from a dairy. They milked 75 cows, & supported three families, with 3 kids at uni. Although they worked hard, it was not an efficient farm.
My neighbour milks 170 cows, on an incredibly well run farm. He is struggling to support his wife & child, & his parents. His father works as hard as any young farmer, on the farm.
I could go on, but if you don't get the idea, you never will. The silly farmer is subsidising us with cheep food, & is being ripped off by the system, nationally, & internationally. Look at the mark up on bananas after the cyclone, by the large chains, who held stock bought cheeply.
I think it must be some type of genetic disease that makes them do it, & I was lucky to have only a mild case myself, which I could resist. Just be glad their out there, earning the export income to pay for your computer, TV, radio, etc. I used to make them, but now we import the lot.
Cut them a bit of slack in the worst times, they never have it realy good these days.

"Yabby, I suspect your argument assumes that demand for beef is completely elastic and that if there is twice the beef available at half the price we will eat twice as much beef per capita."

Graham I think you have overlooked the fact that a major % of
the meat we produce is in fact exported. That market is huge and
fairly elastic. As it happens this year, we won't even fill our
US quota by November this year! The same with lamb, lots goes to
international markets, especially from WA, where the population
is low. Having extra workers when needed, often seasonaly, would
solve many problems, Govt inflexibility on this one is the
problem.

Regarding the dole, how much can your house in the city be worth,
before you don't get it anymore?

Leigh - I do not receive a sent from the government. Apart from the fact that DR is too hard to get, I am one of those ‘good managers’ you speak :) “It works both ways” don’t assume that us country bumpkins have no experience in the city either.

GrahamY – So, if a farmer is willing to sell off his farm/home at a pittance to some huge pastoral company just because we are in drought, move into a house in town, you would be happy for him to receive the dole?? I thought this argument was about being fair.

Your comment about selling all but the house paddock is hardly fair either. The price of a city house compared to the average family farm? Pretty even mostly.

Thank you pericles – it would seem that some here believe their food is ‘manufactured’ and are completely out of touch with were it comes from and why we need Australian farmers.

Steve – I am a diversified farmer, barley is only a part of what I do. We grow barley to feed our own stock, which, by the way, are not exported. Why is ok for other industry to export but not agriculture?

Yabby

It is my understanding that a principle residence is exempt from the asset test.

Although if the land of principle residence is greater than about 4 hectares it is deemed to be income producing under the income test.

The point your are trying to make is?

Well my point is this Steve, if you want to make it fair, so make
it fair. If somebody with a 1.5 million$ mansion in the city can
get the dole, why can't a farmer with a farm worth 500 thousand?

If city people don't have to move anywhere to find a job, why
should country people?

Yabby

I think I have made the point many times that I agree that farmers should be able to get the dole.

I suggest that if someone has a house worth $1.5 million the dole would hardly pay the rates.

I live in a regional area, the population of my town is 30,000. If someone on the dole where I live was offered a job 100 kilometers away they would have to take it.

The inequity as I see is is that a person has to liquidate all their assets (except their home) to get the dole. Thus removing the capacity to use that capital to tide them over until better times arrive.

Yet farmers under drought EC can keep all of their liquid assets and even earn $10,000 of off farm income waiting for better times to arrive.

Maybe the answer is to extend this to all dole recipients not just farmers.

Steve I was not having a go at you. To be honest, I don't know the
rules about dole eligibility, I've never had a Govt subsidy or
payment in my life lol. You seem to know the rules, thats why
I asked.

Grahams point is that things should be fair. Ok so make them fair.
The lines between business and private are hardly existent these
days. How many people operate a computer-online business from their
homes? Heaps, along with the home office, the home share trader etc.
etc.

So my point is this: If you want to make a cut off point for the
dole, make it on total asset value, whether that be farmland or
city land. That is really the only fair way.

Where we draw that line in the sand, ie. eligibility for dole
payments, is for others to think about. Mine is a point of
philosophical principle of fairness and the same treatment for all.
I still think that total asset value is the fairest way to do it,
not how many acres is your back yard etc.

Hasbeen,

It does the heart good to see at least some of it being told not only the way it is, but the way it has been for a very long while. Your pithy observation that "The farmer has somehow missed his share of the wealth enjoyed by most Australians" in its calm understatement verges upon sheer literary beauty. You could perhaps have gone on to add something like ",a wealth in the first case built or derived from historically internationally competitive rural industries in earlier years", but that would have detracted from your eloquent simplicity of expression.

A very large part of that ever-increasingly urbanised Australian community not directly seeing its prosperity as being linked to the international, or even domestic, viability of these PRIMARY industries has collectively committed at a legislative and life-choice level the equivalent of the financial error of borrowing short and lending long. Under the pressures of "free" trade and an adverse climatic situation that many are belatedly starting to recognise will soon come to threaten their claimedly non-rurally based high standard of living, or even of welfare, some are trying to 'protect their own corner'. We see many of such in these forums.

Farmers are not so much "silly" as hostages in attempting to continue in the face of adversity. Graham's trite observation that PF fails to distinguish between personal and business assets reveals a gulf in comprehension of the farmer's situation. Most farmers are both prevented practically and legally from making such distinctions. Just try to subdivide a rural property in NSW to excise the home paddock! Just try to build a fully detached second residence on UNsubdivided farm property! Just try to efficiently run a farm if you do not live on it! Just try to get a decent price for one in good times, let alone adverse times, where there is only effectively one potential buyer!

This sanctimonious querying of the fairness or appropriateness of drought assistance is disgraceful. Those doing it are standing up in the lifeboat. Sit down! Its your turn at the oars.

Forrest

Unfortunately Australia no longer "rides on the sheep's back" Primary Industry accounts for only 3% of the nations GDP. Very different from the 1950s when primary industry was 60% of GDP.

So sadly Australian prosperity has absolutely nothing to do with agriculture even though you may wish to hold onto this romantic notion it is no longer valid.

My wife's family lost the family farm due to death duties, they had to sell half the farm to pay them and it was no longer viable. So I have a limited comprehension of the problem.

With agriculture using 67% of the nations water against 9% by "city dwellers" things can only get worse.

67% of scarce water to create 3% of GDP just does not add up. Sorry I wish it was different but agriculture is a luxury we can no longer afford.

With kid's thinking milk comes from a carton and eating McDonalds fries from NZ the writing is on the wall.

Time to abandon ship guys, no amount of rowing will help now.

So what do you intend to live on Steve? 'Manufactured food', or would you like to see this country at the mercy of the rest of the world to supply it for us?

The water you keep refering to, do you feel those farmers are somehow taking it from you? Should it be diverted to cities instead so you can water your roses and wash your cars?

PF

In my own personal situation water is not an issue, I have 65,000 gallons under my garage floor and my composting loo waters my veggie patch.

I am not attacking farmers but stating reality. 80% of Australia's agriculture is exported, if every country decided that they would not import food as you suggest we would have a glut of food.

These are issues you have to face, if you want to make it a country vs city issue you will go bankrupt.

Poeple in the city (note I do not live in a city) could not give a toss where the food comes from. Price is the only issue.

These are difficult issues but being an ostrich and burying your head in the sand hoping they will go way will not cure anything.

I am trying to be constructive the answers are difficult. But they will have to be addressed sooner or later.

Actually Steve, city slickers still do rely very much on farming.
Take away ag exports from the trade balance, add food imports at
much higher costs then you pay now, the Aussie $ would soon become
the Aussie peso, then you'd pay even more.

Fact is that Aus has few efficient industries in world terms.
Mining is one, farming is another, after that it gets thin on
the ground. Fleixlbe labour policies in the meat industry would
let it operate at its potential, its city slickers holding back
farming on that one.

But you have a point about water. If climate change is for real
and stays for real, then some Eastern States farming areas are
in deep doodoo. Huge changes will have to happen. Yup some of
farming wastes water, as does some city. Only by making water
expensive and giving it a market value, will people use it wisely,
I am sad to say.

Interesting that hardly any drought aid comes to the West. I
just read an article that so many WA farmers have restructured here
during hard years in the past, that few would qualify now. So there
are solutions.

Fair go Graham,
Tons of wheat plus plenty of cheap meat and then throw in the local footy and netball teams, now they are worth much more to Australia's cohesiveness and character than reams of printer paper and nights at the opera .
Look after all farmers .[Poviding they look after the environment ]

Steve Madden
I would like to answer that question posted 18.10.2206 please. The biggest problem with real farmers is they are very proud and wont except or ask for help. Even if they do as PF pointed out it is made so hard and complictaed that many just cant fill the papers out. The whole system is shameful.Because farmers are the backbone of this country and its the right thing to look after them. Also a long term view is ever heard of "santcions and boycotts'. Take a look around you it happens world wide. We have a high percentage of unemployed and few prodiving center link for many in this country. The National party are traitors to the farmers flooding the market with cheap imports.
The levies and tax dodges and the all mighty trade dollar deals and lerks and perks are not accessed by the real Australian farmer. No sir Re. The maketing support and props are not passed onto them either.Just try getting a accreditation done from a local plant to export standard if you are a smaller operator. Its made almost impossible for the litle man. There are people looking into the whole unfair system. It stinks.
Oh no thats strictly corp people with the clever accountants and the regional transport arrangments. Not so for people real farmer.

We dont want the Government to gobble up the poorer farmer. Poorer at times in bank balance but rich in knowledge and running free range farms disease free . We dont want all intensive farms and feedlots creating disease and inflicting mass cruelty.
We want real farmers who creek feed not intensive feed. Perhaps some do not know the difference.
this may help
.http://www.themeatrix.com/

Wayne Smith is on the right track regarding the water problem and yes sea water is the way to go. We are surounded by it and a profesor who is sort world wide regarding turning sea water into fresh lives right here in Australia. Here is another cluey bloke

http://www.themeatrix.com/

Why should farmers be treated differently than miners- because we all need to eat

Has been

Your right. Its not that simple. Have you noticed retired farmers are loosing so much per week off their pension if they own land. Its true some farms will have to look for another product to grow.

Laurie "exceptional circumstances' to small businesses crumbling'
You dont get it. Without the farmers and the meat plants you wont have a business. By helping the farmers the Government already helps you. Why should you double dip.

Pericles said he was surprised by the vehemence that turned up to post. I am saddened and angry. No wonder the old cockys talk about the city slickers. They really do live in fairy land. Oh well guess we can blame John Howard its easier that way.

Yabby is right on the money re back to back shifts of meat plants. I dont agree with the theory of why the reluctance to bring in the abattoir workers. I think you need to look a little closer to home.
Its interesting to note the GATS can be used everywhere else. If you get a copy of the act it clearly reads the GATS sytem can be used in every trade except prostitution. A good argument for any company looking to increae empoyment and run twenty four hour shifts at abattoirs.

Mark Vaile wrote a few years ago explaing why the GATS could never be used in abattoirs.

Farmers dont think like that. They speak in a language of a hanshake is worth more than any bit of paper. We cant afford to loose people like that. They are Australia.
Woolworth and coles for example need to get involved with free range Farmers. People want healthy products for their family and to know the animal has not been confined in an area it could not move in.
Move them on they say. Move them on where? Its their home their life and their land and we ow them big time. We wont move them on to be pushed out by the corperate bullys.
Steve Madden you are better than that

Steve,

Good admission of yours several posts back - "These are difficult issues". Too right they are. All I suggest is that it does few of us any good to encourage the self-righteous attitude of some who should know better when, faced with tightening water restrictions, an increased number of welfare recipients, or such like, they simply look around for that to which others have an existing entitlement to ease their own convenience.

Just to be sure we are talking about the same things, it has always been my understanding that mining, too, is a primary industry. I must admit that I don't have the figures to hand, but I think when mining is added to agriculture we are talking significantly more than 3% of GDP. Coal mining, too, is under attack in Australia from the same sort of control freaks who are responsible for the neglect of water supply infrastructure.

It must be thirty to forty years since death duties were abolished, but the utterly disastrous effects of this most destructive of taxes are with us yet. The forced sales and dismemberment of estates that this tax entailed, let alone the costly legal processes that were necessary to minimize its impact, are probably a quite significant contributing factor to the difficulties faced by farmers today. Sustainable farming is a very long-term business. The huge amount of money those death duties raised helped unsustainably expand the public sector, many of whose present day clients are squealing at having to share "their" welfare pool or career prospects with newly misfortunate people who have heretofore somehow carried their own load.

Payment of death duties, incidentally, provides a classic example of just how difficult it was to separate business from personal assets. Collection, in many cases, amounted to divesting the next generation farmer from what was not only his or her inheritance, but also the tools of trade.
Pericles characterises some of the critics of drought relief as raw-in-tooth-and-claw capitalists. More like scared former communists, I reckon, fleeing in disguise from a disaster of their own making!

Forrest

Mining is about 5% of Australia's GDP despite the hype about the resources boom it is still a very small part of our economy.

"Service Industries" are the biggest portion of GDP at about 58% and financial services make up a large proportion.

In other words the Australian economy is riding on the back of an industry that makes absolutely nothing. (except profits).

The accountants, brokers, merchant bankers are the ones who run and control our economy and they have no sympathy for the hard workers who strive to make a living for there families and future generations.

Until we find a way to let people who actually make something have a say we will become an economic rationalist battlefield of greed.

Try to buy clothes not made in China (from Australian cotton). Food will be next and water will be the excuse.

Free trade is a farce, we need to protect our farmers and manufacturers. What chance do we have when the "conventional wisdom" says otherwise.

The hard workers get zilch, screen jockeys get Mercedes.

Benny you misinterpret my feelings. I am not saying that things are correct just pointing out the way they are. :)

The way I see it Steve Madden everybody has a point. If you look at the overall problem its clear we need to get smarter. If they can build a city in the middle of the sand in other countries and find water so can Australia. The fellow talking about the sea water has a good point. Other counries are travelling to Australia to talk to this Dr who has the method. Every Government except Australia where the person lives. It does not add up. Some of the corp farmers snatch and grab every lerk perk tax cut but then again you cant call them real farmers. If you are in the know there are grants under the regional grants sytem that should be wiped. Tax lerks are a joke too.
What you end up with is the little honest farmer being sqeezed out. That is what is happening.
Lots of smaller free range farmers is what is required and the corp guys want to mussle the little man out and replace them with feed lots.
If you walk into a super market and buy a can of home brand baked beans, guess where they come from? UAE.
So tell me how that is smart.
What Australia cant grow some beans and put them in a tin?
God help us when its our turn to be sanctioned .
Give the land back to the free Range farmers and for god sake train some of these lazy people I see living off the dole walking the streets and beaches. A few in the army might be a darn good idea too.
You have got a nation of youth often walking around on drugs
A good long term plan if you are the enermy I would think.