Australian farmers are feeling disillusioned.
I could barely believe it when I heard the politically conservative (in advocacy terms, not party politics) National Farmers Federation representatives staged a walk-out on Agriculture Minister Murray Watt’s post-budget breakfast speech.
This level of protest is very unlike NFF, but is one of so many examples of frustration across the farming community.
Perhaps the national feeling was summed up by Western Australia Farmers vice president Steve McGuire when he said, after the federal budget: "My wife and I even had that discussion: Do we keep farming because we don't know what to do next? No matter what we say or do, the government might just chop it off. Common sense and good argument obviously has nothing to do with it".
Unfortunately this is a deceptive government that does not value the contribution agriculture or the farming community in general makes to the nation.
It does not even seem to understand there is a link between farming and the cost of living crisis, with policies that restrict food and fibre production forcing up food prices.
In southern NSW and northern Victoria, farmers are terrified at what the government may do next with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
Just as Mr McGuire said, it doesn’t matter what farmers do and common-sense plays no role. Decisions are solely based on winning capital city votes.
At present, the government is spending $12 million on a misleading Basin Plan advertising campaign as it attempts to woo voters with false images and rhetoric.
But it continues to deliberately hide details on water buybacks, which will devastate regional communities, or provide any information on any structural adjustment packages, which suggests they are grossly inadequate.
Murray Watt refused to visit sheep farmers in Western Australia and talk openly with them before introducing his live sheep export ban, and likewise Water Minister Tanya Plibersek refuses to visit the areas which will be most affected by her approach to the Basin Plan.
There are numerous other areas where our federal government appears to see farmers and agriculture as the necessary collateral damage to their city-based agenda.
I doubt Australia has ever had a government that is so anti-agriculture.
Anthony Albanese promised to govern for everyone, but it seems his ‘everyone’ does not apply if you live outside a capital city and rely on farming and the economic prosperity it generates.
Yours etc.
Shelley Scoullar
Albury
24°C