Dear Yabby,

I'm not saying this is the case for your man but I venture there will be a lot of under performing CEOs and managers who will trot out the Carbon Tax as an excuse.

In most cases it will flag either under performance or some sort of smoke and mirrors.

Over supply has dropped lamb prices by nearly a third so the Carbon Tax is a bees dick of nothing in the scheme of things. In fact it is one hundredth of the price depreciation.

Yet it should be noted that lamb exports for the first five months are up 20% over the corresponding period last year.

There is competition from the Kiwis as their European markets contract forcing them into some of ours.

If your bloke doesn't acknowledge these factors and instead keeps banging on about the tax we are left to draw our own conclusions.

Farming families are going to be measurably better off in relative terms when all things are taken into account with the adjustments around the tax yet you are flipping off the gains as nothing.

Only the agenda driven myopic windbags are going to continue to make a case that the tax is a calamity to the processing industry.

*Farming families are going to be measurably better off in relative terms when all things are taken into account with the adjustments around the tax yet you are flipping off the gains as nothing.*

Oh yeah? Last time I checked, it was going to cost dairy farmers
around 10% of their net income. Because of course a great deal of
that milk is turned into milk powder and cheese, using electricity.

Not only that, virtually every farm input will have its price
affected, as suppliers pass on their costs.

Farming families will in fact be worse affected than others, for
of course they are the backbone of the small non mining export
sector which still exists in this country, getting less by the day.

They can't pass on their costs, which is my point. Your answer is
"Oh what do a few extra costs matter". You clearly have no idea
of how sharp the pencil has to be to exist in this sector, where
EVERY cost matters. Good govt is not about screwing them some
more, to make them even less competitive.

We have two standards here: Screw the farmers as they don't vote for
us. Give millions to Alcoa, as it will win us a few brownie points
with their workers and the unions want it.What is fair about that?

Lexi I still regard you as a Friend.
Do you however in handing me that crap, know you insult me?
Now stay calm.
I expect my views and my right to them to be under valued by the red necks here not you.
Your post informs me the problem is me, I do not understand, only you and those who support you do.
And the constant defense of the love of my life, my reason for living.
The Australian Labor Party infers my wish, that it return to its true path, Governing, is betrayal.
I back my understanding, the night before Kevin won office I assured you we would win, you said you hoped so.
My wish, always is to win, to never hand this country over to such as Abbott.
We glowed with pride at polling saying Kevin would win.
Are we that shallow we ignore the ones warning of our demise? our near death?that Gillard can never turn us around?
Lexi, here in this thread I have asked that we double refugee in take.
In effect, less than 18 months from now, Conservative policy's will rule this and every subject.
In part because we are refusing to COMPRERMISE WHILE WE CAN.
I for this blame the greens, the nice folk and believe Gillard must re call the house pass conservatives amendments and take the high moral ground.
Steam rolling greens and the unrealistic nice folk at the same time.

Dear Yabby,

Gawd mate.

So lamb's out and you have switched to dairy?

Sheesh. Don't have time to do the figures right now but will try to get to them, however I suspect they will tell a similar story to the lamb tale, its all a bloody beat up.

*So lamb's out and you have switched to dairy?*

Nope, I simply refuted your claim that farmers would be better off,
which you pulled clean out of your arse, with no figures to justify
it. The dairy example has been well documented in the rural press.
That is just yet another farming industry being hit.

You see Csteele, carbon tax is just the start. Then we had a 40%
increase in AQIS charges, again farmers pay. Then we have 12%
super, more costs for the industry. It now costs twice as much
to kill a cow in Australia compared to America. Next you will
be wondering why we put them on a boat.

Most of Australia is already unviable globally in doing anything.
Rising costs and politicians who have never run a business have
a huge amount to do with it.

Is there no way to find positives.

Many refugees would be skilled, and others could be trained in skills we need. Remember Gina H and her wish to bring in workers.

The problems people seem to identify are social welfare and lack of willingness to integrate within wider society.

Detention time could be better used in training, and/or adapting existing skills, learning English and, importantly, our way of life, and that certain cultural/religious practices are indeed acceptable, others not.

The success of each wave of refugees/migrants to this country - including the cameleers of the 19th/early 20th century - was their integration into society, adapting to the dominant culture, whilst contributing cultural positives of their own. Indeed, in the latter case, we actually adopted these.

Muslim cameleers (Afghanis and Pakistanis) not only contributed greatly to Australia, but integrated extremely well. An advertisement by cameleers at that time invited all-comers to their end of Ramadan/Christmas feast to try their different foods. These men were obviously very intelligent with a great sense of humour, and importantly, a sense of proportion.

As I recall, the Snowy River Scheme was manned by immigrants to this country.