At last there are encouraging signs emerging of a growing consensus about the need for urgent action to arrest the decline of the nation's beleaguered dairy industry.
As reported in The Land last week, we have a bold proposal from business heavyweight John Dahlsen for a retail levy on drinking milk.
It would provide a long-overdue pay rise for the nation's 5800 dairy farmers.
I've been 'banging-on' about this for years. But now it seems the message is getting through to others - and to people with far more clout than your humble scribe! - that something needs to change, and quickly.
It was reported elsewhere in The Land last week that Labor and independent MP Bob Katter are likewise calling for minimum mandatory pricing for milk on the domestic market.
The Dahlsen proposal is for a mandated levy of 40 cents per litre to be applied at retail level to all types of drinking milk, which would then be rebated to farmers in proportion to their monthly production.
Farmers supplying milk for manufacturing other dairy products, such as cheese, would receive a pro-rata payment.
The Dahlsen proposal, if adopted, would mean an annual income top-up of $220,396 for the average Australian dairy farmer with 273 cows, while barely registering a blip on the average consumer household's weekly shopping bill.
- Peter Austin
The proposal is designed to correct the gross inequity in milk pricing that started in 2011 when Coles - to its lasting shame - introduced $1-per-litre milk as the star player in its appalling 'Down, Down' marketing campaign.
Other supermarket chains were obliged to follow suit, and milk prices have remained in the doldrums ever since - while dairy farmers have had to battle with drought, floods, bushfires and soaring costs of feed, water and energy.
Little wonder that in the past 12 months alone, another 500 dairy farmers left the industry - joining the long march that has seen the number of dairy farms in Australia shrink by almost three quarters since 1980.
The absurdity of our present milk pricing - given that Australia is the driest (and, hence, least 'dairy-friendly') settled continent on earth - is evident from a comparison of generic milk prices across the western world, published earlier this month in AgJournal.
It shows Australia's current price of $1.20/litre is the lowest of the 18 countries studied.
The United States came in at $1.31/litre, Britain at $1.38/litre, South Africa at $1.48/litre, Canada at $2.29/litre and so on - up to Hong Kong at $4.85/litre.
The Dahlsen proposal, if adopted, would mean an annual income top-up of $220,396 for the average Australian dairy farmer with 273 cows, while barely registering a blip on the average consumer household's weekly shopping bill.
Any reform of domestic milk pricing won't come easily.
The dairy industry, like other primary industries, speaks with many voices.
Governments are also understandably chary about intervening in agricultural markets - even ones that have clearly failed.
But the time could be ripe for a concerted lobbying effort, while we have a by-election looming in Eden-Monaro (a major dairying region) and with Scott Morrison's 'national cabinet' in place to grapple with weighty federal/state issues.