Press Release

“Western Australian Liberal MP’s need to stand up against Shadow Agriculture Minister John Cobb and his National Party cohorts determination to regulate the livelihoods of thousands of Western Australian wheat farmers following his calls yesterday in Parliament to decline the Second Reading of the Wheat Export Marketing Amendment Bill in order to extend and amend Wheat Exports Australia,” PGA Western Grain Growers Chairman John Snooke said.

“Mr Cobb and the Nationals continue to pander to Eastern States Farming organisations, including the GPA - which has little if any representation in Western Australia - and their desire to centralise the power and increase the scope of the WEA and return Australia’s export wheat industry to the days of collective marketing under the Single Desk.”

“It is rather concerning that while Mr Cobb continues to wax lyrically about the lack of consultation with industry stakeholders that has occurred over the Government’s decision to follow the recommendations of the Productivity Commission, neither he nor any of his Nationals compatriots have sought the views of Western Australian grain farmers who produce the majority of Australia’s export wheat.”

“In fact the Nationals continue to ignore the calls by both WA Farming Organisations, the State’s largest grower cooperative, CBH and individual growers to continue down the path of full deregulation initiated by Labor and supported by the Liberals and the Greens in 2008.”

“Retaining and extending the charter of Wheat Exports Australia offers no benefits to the thousands of wheat growers in WA who are finally free from the subjugation of the Single Desk and no longer have to underwrite the excessive costs of the previous national wheat marketing regime” he said.

“The National Party, which in the past has been a direct beneficiary of wheat regulation, has a self serving interest in re-regulating wheat exports which is a threat to the profitability and competitive advantage of WA wheat growers and this is why the WA grains industry is prevailing upon all WA Federal Parliamentarians not to fall for the Nationals’ agrarian socialist propaganda.”