A Crossley dairy farmer who presented evidence to the Senate dairy inquiry has described the report as “remarkably disappointing”.
The Senate’s Economics References Committee has released its report, after an inquiry was set up to investigate farm gate milk price cuts, in 20015-16.
But dairy farmer Karinjeet Singh-Mahil, who was among producers who were called to give evidence to the inquiry, was scathing. “Having waited for so long and having cost taxpayers so much money, it was a remarkably disappointing result,” Ms Singh-Mahil said.
“It was very general, uninformed and had a factually incorrect basis behind some of the decisions.” Ms Singh-Mahil said the previous year, Fonterra had stayed 20 cents behind Murray Goulburn (MG), right until the end of the season.
“Why do they believe the spin of the corporates ? They still don’t understand our industry,” she said.
Gippsland farmer Marian Macdonald was more supportive of the Senate report.
“I think the Senate committee has done a great job of identifying the problem, but what we are missing are some meaningful solutions,” Ms Macdonald said.
“One of the things they could have done is look at what other countries have done to safeguard their dairy farmers in similar situations.” She said risk management tools were employed in New Zealand, something the Australian industry had not adopted or openly considered.
Ms Macdonald also questioned why the Senators had asked processors to be conservative about opening milk prices, to reduce the risk of stepdowns.
“Why should farmers bear all the risk, why is that an expectation? We need to start challenging conventional thinking.”
But she said overall she felt the inquiry was very helpful.
“It has peeled back all the layers and made very public and very clear what problems are and made it more difficult for status quo to be reinforced.”
United Dairyfarmers of Victoria (UDV) president Adam Jenkins said he was disappointed at the comments about the code of conduct and the dairy index. “It’s good to see it finally come out – I think the industry or the ACCC has already embarked on a lot of the things they have already recommended,” Mr Jenkins said.
“There is going to be some duplication with the ACCC inquiry, which has more powers.
He said the UDV’s view was that “you have to start somewhere” with issues like the index. “It may not be perfect, but as things develop over time and as people get behind them, we can make it work,” Mr Jenkins said.
He was also sceptical of calls for an independent review of the Dairy Australia and Dairy Services levy.
Farmer Power’s Alex Robertson said it appeared the inquiry was a waste of time and the industry was still waiting on the ACCC to act.
“The meat industry is also complaining about the ACCC dragging its heels,” Mr Robertson said.
“Why didn’t they talk about dollar milk? Two inquiries have raised it and they didn’t want to go near it.”
He described the commodity price index as “a complete waste of time.”
“They have identified a few things but have decided not to act on them. They are just being lazy.” He said dollar milk needed to be scrapped and more transparent, fixed pricing introduced.
