Anyone following the sugar marketing debate over the past month would be well aware of the intemperate and alarmist claims and statements surrounding the Sugar Industry (Real Choice in Marketing) Amendment Bill.
Claims the LNP has backed the KAP to ‘re-regulate’ the sugar industry are inaccurate and misleading. I was disappointed by the comments made by the Milling Council immediately after the Bill was passed in State Parliament on the night of Wednesday 2nd December 2015 that this legislation will lead into a ‘legal quagmire’. The last thing the LNP wishes to see is for millers or cane farmers to continue the stand-off that started in earnest in May 2014.
The LNP’s common sense amendments are not the mark of ‘economic vandalism’, nor in any way do they not take the industry ‘back to the 1950s’.
Everyone accepts the sugar industry has been de-regulated and there was a substantial taxpayer-funded package provided to bring about the changes.
For the record the LNP’s simple amendments:
· Do Not re-regulate industry;
· Do Not take industry back to the 1950s;
· Do Not reinstate statutory vesting of the Queensland sugar crop;
· Do Not remove voluntary marketing arrangements;
· Do Not dictate Queensland sugar must be marketed through QSL – single desk;
· Do Not reinstate the Cane Production Area (CPA) system which restricted growers transferring cane between mill areas; and
· Do Not reinstate the statutory bargaining system.
After very extensive consultation and high-level legal opinion we did exactly what we said we would do - amend legislation to allow a level of competition in marketing and a logical process for dispute resolution, nothing more, nothing less.
This legislation was needed because over the past two years the three major millers, Wilmar, Tully Sugar and MSF Sugar, made it clear they intended to use their regional monopoly positons to force cane farmers to sign-up to contracts that included a move away from long-standing selling arrangements through Queensland Sugar Ltd. This was unacceptable to a vast majority of cane farmers.
The notion we now all live and work on a utopian, free-trade level playing field and that any government regulation/interference will be in breach of the WTO and scare-off all investment is fanciful. Governments make regulations every day and the LNP’s amendments were made to ensure milling monopolies are not used to unfair advantage.
The LNP has been entirely up-front about delivering a ‘fair go’ for cane growers.
After the big-three millers announced they we pulling out of marketing arrangements with QSL in May 2014, our then Minister for Agriculture John McVeigh did his best to bring the parties together to achieve a negotiated settlement.
On numerous occasions we publicly stated we believed this was an issue for industry. We also stated that as a last resort we would support legislation, not ‘re-regulation’, and amendments that allowed growers to have a choice, which at the same time provided a platform for dispute settlement.
After calm, fair-minded review of our amendments, I hope the millers see reason and accept our amendments mandate nothing, and that they change nothing if supply agreements can be successfully reached between growers and millers. We see our amendments as a ‘safety-net’ – only when needed if and when all good faith negotiations have failed.
At the same time any potential for monopoly control of sugar marketing is removed so that the market for sugar selling services remains fully open and contestable.
I’m absolutely sure the ACCC would like to see that.
- Deb Frecklington MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
