Dairy industry: Market turmoil caused by poor governance

Dairy farmers are used to, and accept, seasonal and price volatility.
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The current turmoil is instead about the information provided to farmers by those they trusted further up the chain within the milk companies, particularly Murray Goulburn. In theory MG is a farmer co-operative, but in practice it is big business, with thousands of farmer members across the nation. Dairy farmers plan according to the «opening price», announced at the start of the financial year by the processors. It is generally accepted as being conservative. In July 2015, the major processors, MG and Fonterra, indicated the average farm gate price would be about 42 cents per litre in 2015/2016 – about the long-term average. MG executives and farmer directors constantly reaffirmed this message until March. Suddenly, on April 27, MG notified farmers the price should have been 35c/L; the farmer would not only get a price decrease in May and June but have to pay back the overpayment of 10 c/L since July 1, 2015. For an average farm the amount is $127,000, with $107,000 retrospective. The world price did not suddenly plummet.
Fresh milk makes up only 10 per cent of the market for dairy products. There is no direct link between the price of milk in the supermarket and the price farmers receive. So even if the price of milk doubled it would not help farmers. Nor are calls for levies helpful. They add to the perception that farmers are «whingers» who expect handouts. The real issue is fair trading practice and governance by corporate executives and farmer directors.
John Mulvany, dairy consultant, Leongatha South

Self-sufficiency now at risk?

There was once numerous dairy co-operatives around the state. They weren’t large enterprises but they kept costs low, provided local employment and ensured that hard-working dairy farmers got a living wage. And we in the city paid a fair and reasonable price for our milk. Now thanks to a corporate, rather than co-operative, business model the smartest guys in the room with their innovation, enterprise and optimistic sales predictions have managed to financially cripple dairy farmers while paying themselves big salaries and bonuses. Is Australia’s dairy industry going to be the next industry to fail? What will be the result? A loss of self sufficiency in a vital food product? Or will Chinese investors simply take over more of the industry by snapping up dairy farms at bargain prices?
Ross Bardin, Williamstown

Wasteful industry should be phased out

Consumers are threatened with yet another levy («‘Milk levy’: Shoppers to pay an extra 50 cents a litre under plan being hatched by farmers, 12/5»). Instead of propping up the dairy industry, we should be phasing it out. Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, far more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. Dairy farming is also a wasteful use of water and land, and pollutes our waterways with effluent. It is also a cruel industry with an endless cycle of use and abuse before the spent cow is sent to the abattoir. An hour or so spent watching the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret should convince anyone that dairy products are not necessary.
Christine Riding, Abercrombie, NSW

We pay fair price to farmers

William Darvall (Letters, 14/5) if you want to buy milk that returns a fair price to farmers, consider Aussie Farmers Direct. We work with a Victorian dairy in Camperdown and are committed to paying a fair price to farmers. Our dairy wants a sustainable industry and, unlike the big guys, has no plans to drop the price it pays farmers.
Keith Louie, CEO, Aussie Farmers Direct

Kennett has a cheek

It is bitterly ironic to hear Jeff Kennett now warn of the danger Transurban poses. In early 1994, Schroders Australia Corporate Finance was financial adviser to VicRoads on the CityLink project. That March my colleague David Lennon and I were invited to present a paper on road financing at an infrastructure symposium. It was attended by, among others, road authorities from three eastern states. We advised that it was commercially naive to think private tolling concessions would run their term and that the roads would then revert to government. We said incumbents would renegotiate to progressively extend tolling concessions, thus creating permanent private monopolies. We also explained how a tolling regime could be established that did not involve selling control of the toll revenue stream.
The response was swift and unambiguous. Shortly after the paper was delivered, Schroders’ Melbourne office was informed that its advisory mandate was being split into two «phases», the first was to end immediately. The «second phase» was to be re-tendered; needless to say it was awarded to another firm.
«Independent» advisers cannot protect the public interest; they can only tinker at the edges of schemes that are favoured by politicians or bureaucrats. The privatisation of our roads has led to the needless waste of billions of dollars; money that is desperately needed elsewhere. Unless it is stopped, countless more billions will be wasted.
Stephen Morris, Coorparoo, Queensland

So much for discipline

When Jeff Kennett and his like began privatising public utilities and offering infrastructure projects to the private sector it was to apply «the discipline of the market». We all know what has happened since: prices have gone up excessively, apprentices are no longer trained, services are arguably poorer and a huge bureaucracy of highly paid rent-seekers has emerged.
Another consequence has been a shift in the role of government: from implementing the wishes of electors for the benefit of all to featherbedding the private sector. Once government has given certain corporations the most profitable tidbits, these corporations work to ensure this continues. Governments of both persuasions respond willingly.
Apart from the lost revenue, and the handing over of infrastructure planning to private interests, the crucial question concerns the kind of society we want. Government is supposed to take a society-wide view, companies consider only their profit. The government must take back power over infrastructure planning, and cancel projects of the type so beloved by Transurban and its ilk.
Greg Bailey, St Andrews

Clean up own house

It goes without saying that senior Catholic bishops have the right to issue edicts in an attempt to influence voters at the impending election («Bishops warn on same sex marriage», 16/5). However, one would hope only «rusted-on» Catholics will take any notice. I continue to find it appallingly hypocritical when Catholic Church leaders attempt to claim the moral high ground on any social or welfare issues. Adapting a key paragraph in the edict, I would say: Any church is ultimately judged not only on how well it manages its finances but also on how well it treats its own «thrown-away» people – the innocent victims and their families who are suffering as a direct result of physical and sexual abuse by its priests. The Catholic Church needs to clean up its own house before it can speak with any credibility on what might constitute a «healthy» society.
Reinhard Beissbarth, Beechworth

Early years are critical

Had such a program as that provided by the Safe Schools Coalition been available to my daughter, perhaps she wouldn’t have spent 15 years of her life battling debilitating depression, anxiety and eating disorders – to name a few effects of gender dysphoria. All those critical years of social development and education wasted, where she could have been developing a real notion of herself.
By the age of 31, after some failed, heart-breaking heterosexual relationships, teenage infatuation with other females, self harm and brain-flattening medication, she has found herself identifying as neither strongly a woman nor a man. She no longer needs medication and endless psychology appointments and is finally happy.
Contrary to pious opinion from the far right, humans can fall anywhere on the spectrum from male to female. We not only have «gays» and «straights» but myriad non gender-binary traits; they are all genuine conditions. The Safe Schools program is not «indoctrination». It lends life-saving support to young people who question their «appointed» gender.
Name and address withheld

Knowledge is vital

Professor Amir Attaran’s warning in the Harvard Public Health Review that the Olympics are likely to be the catalyst for a global spread of the Zika virus comes at a time when Australia is reducing its research capacity through the cuts to CSIRO.
While the CSIRO doesn’t work on the Zika virus it has the expertise to do so. CSIRO works on related mosquito-borne diseases of Dengue fever, Murray Valley encephalitis and West Nile virus. This work is vital as the climate warms and mosquitoes spread further south.
The more than $100 million cuts to CSIRO from the Abbott government’s 2014 budget have not been reversed and the nearly 300 jobs cuts proposed will further destroy CSIRO research capacity. At a time when the global challenges of climate change and global epidemics threaten, we must increase, not reduce, our research capacity. Friends of CSIRO have asked the major parties to commit to reversing the cuts. We are awaiting a response.
Kathryn Kelly, national coordinator, Friends of CSIRO

Sloppy record-keeping

The Australian Electoral Commission urges voters to update their details when they move house. I did so, but when I received the confirmation email I found the AEC had wrongly recorded my apartment number. Now, in the busy weeks leading up to an election, I have to try to get the AEC to correct my address. I hope this isn’t indicative of the AEC’s level of attention to detail.
Caitlin Stone, Moonee Ponds

Practical dress code

Uniform codes tell a parent everything about the school’s expectations around gender, particularly around physical activity. In trying to impose dresses for my (very unwilling) daughter, the principal said that «she can wear bike shorts» in case her dress flies up when playing sport. I wondered how enthusiastic boys would be if every time they kicked a ball their pants fell down to reveal their underpants, such that they would need to wear bike shorts. The matter was eventually resolved in favour of pants for all students following a complaint to the Commonwealth Human Rights Commission, backed up with the threat of an injunction from VCAT. And my daughter? Now an armed tactical officer in the police force – and no expectations of dresses.
Janine Truter, The Basin

Are the Libs for real?

I don’t know if the state Liberals are just going through the motions objecting to the restoration of the Trades Hall building, or whether they really believe it’s a «waste of taxpayers»‘ money. If they could just forget the building’s union links and see it for what it is. A lovely old building seriously in need of repair.
Last year I attended a book launch there. I was keen to get a look at this old building that I had been passing for many, many years. I was shocked. I am disabled and the rigmarole I had to go through to get upstairs was truly 19th century. I had to walk all the way around the back to get to the lift, passing through numerous dilapidated meeting rooms that looked like they were still in their original condition.
Second, this is a heritage listed building, built in 1859. That in itself is enough reason for it to be conserved. We are losing far too many of these wonderful old buildings.
Jill Burn, Ivanhoe

Riders, beware Uber taxis

In 20 years of bike riding, I’ve done the equivalent of about five times around world without incident. I’m very cautious. But I now have a fractured spine following a dooring incident. What got me was a passenger suddenly getting out of a car in traffic: the car being an «Uber» car. Standard taxis are obvious due to their lights; Uber cars are camouflaged taxis.
Furthermore, Uber passengers exit quickly (as there is no lengthy wait to pay the driver); they can jump out of the car anywhere (unlike taxi drivers who usually indicate and pull over to conduct the payment transaction. Uber also takes no responsibility in helping those injured in doorings, as it states it is simply a software company. Finally, tracking an Uber driver is difficult as the name and number plate are removed from the passenger’s email trail immediately after the trip. So no record is kept.
Matthew Naughton, Hawthorn
Source: The Age
 

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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