Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I sat here and enjoyed my $200,000 per year after they took all the rifles and firearms off the people that I represent, as well as off all the people of Australia. I stayed loyal. I sat in this place and took my $200,000 when my own party, the Liberal National Party in Queensland, completely destroyed the fishing industry of North Queensland. Two thousand jobs vanished in North Queensland. I sat in this place and was loyal. The ALP wiped out the timber industry, but I was not in the ALP, so I could savagely and fearlessly attack them. I did not savagely and fiercely attack the LNP, as I should have. I sat in this place when some 2,000 jobs vanished in the tobacco industry—and I think that affected the electorate of the member who spoke prior to me in this place, the member for Indi. That was after deregulation of the tobacco industry—nothing to do with people not smoking. I stayed loyal. They deregulated the sugar industry and we lost 1,500 jobs. Two of the six—arguably seven—sugar mills in Kennedy closed. I still stayed loyal. But, when it came to the dairy industry, that was the bridge too far.

Everyone knew what would happen to the dairymen if they were deregulated. The LNP government in this place and the ALP government of Queensland signed an agreement to deregulate the dairy industry, so they deregulated it. I would estimate that we lost about 1,500 jobs on the Atherton Tableland. We had about 240 dairymen. Last time I looked, I think 42 were all that we had left. One of our little towns up there had the highest suicide rate in Australia. Within three years of dairy deregulation—and I hate using this statistic because it seems to me that I am lessening the impact every time I say it—we had a farmer committing suicide every four days in Australia. The people in this place knew that, because they knew the suicide figures after the deregulation of the wool industry and the deregulation of the sugar industry. It was one suicide every two months in the wool industry, which is a much smaller industry than the sugar industry. It was one suicide every two weeks in the sugar industry. But, after the collapse of the dairy industry, we had one suicide every four days—not dairy farmers but one farmer every four days.

Has this resulted in a single change of attitude? Is there a single scintilla of change in attitude or policy? No. Has there been any change in the agricultural outlook? I loved the previous speaker and her optimism. The simple facts of the matter are that the dairy herd is down 31 per cent. Are the prices so attractive that people are going to go back into it? I will give you the prices. Under a regulated system, with a fairness tribunal, the price for fresh milk was 59c a litre in Queensland. That was the figure for my area, but I think it is a fair figure for Queensland. In New South Wales, I would say 58c was the price. Victoria had rolling deregulation, so it is very hard to pick an exact time at which you could say the prices changed, but their figures would have been worse than ours. We went from 59c down to 42c overnight. The day before regulation, we were on 59c. The day after regulation, we went to 42c.

So much for your free market. There cannot, by definition, be a free market when you move from a regulated market to a deregulated market and the price drops 20c, or 30 per cent, in one day. The figure in June 2000, as I said, was 59c a litre for fresh milk. The current price offered for fresh milk on the Atherton Tableland is 48½c, and we are getting a pretty good deal. I suspect our deal is probably better than anyone else's in the rest of Australia, so I am not complaining about the deal we are getting. But a government fairness tribunal decided that a fair price in June 2000 was 59c, and now the market has decided that a fair price in the year of our Lord 2014 is 48c. How can anyone possibly survive in this industry?

These are lovely people, dairymen. They are not people that would understand how much money is coming in here and how much money is going out there, although some of them do. I have the great honour of having probably one of the biggest dairymen in Queensland—with about 850 head—Ray Graham, in my electorate, and Ray can tell you specifically the cost of every single cost input in his operations. But most of them are not able to do that. They just know that the banks start ringing them up and saying: 'Look, we're not happy with the way your account's going. Can you come in and see us?' And from then on it gets grimmer and grimmer and grimmer.

They are trying to get by now on 48c a litre, whereas in June 2000 they were on 59c a litre. If you CPI that 59c then they should be on 84c. So a fairness tribunal today would decide that 84c a litre was a fair call. They are being paid 48c, not 84c. Maybe they got the numbers mixed up and put the wrong number in the front—I do not know. I do know and that is not true.

Was this good for Australia? Did the consumer get a cheaper price for milk? No. Within two years, the price for milk went up 25 per cent and stayed up for the next 11 years. Now Coles have pulled a bit of a stunt, with a margin on their competitor, Woolworths, so the price has gone down for the farmer. I do not know that Coles suffered any losses but farmers most certainly did—their price went down. But for 11 years the price was up 25 per cent. So here are our free marketeers who come in here and tell us that, if we move to a free market, this is going to benefit Australia. Well, your export market is down 30 per cent I think—it is around that sort of figure. Exports are down, production is down 31 per cent and a number of farmers are gone, never to come back if they have any brains.

So where was it good? Was it good for the consumers? No. They paid an average price increase of 20 per cent. They did not get any benefit from the price going down 30 per cent to the farmer, no benefit at all. It is an insult to the intelligence of every person in this country for us to come in here and talk about a free market when nearly 90 per cent of the food market in Australia is held by two companies, and that is not my call. I will give you the actual figures. When the AC Nielsen series was discontinued in 2002, they had 76.7 per cent of the market. The Australian Bureau of Statistics official government figures use a different basket and they had them at 68 per cent. Whether you want to say they are on 68 per cent or on 76.7 per cent, that is up to you, but this parliament sat here and watched them grow from 50.5 per cent in 1999 up to the 70 per cent range when we had the big inquiry on Woolworths and Coles—Fair market or market failure? So everyone knew that they were moving up towards 90 per cent over the next 10 years and nobody did anything.

The people who were on that committee will go down in history condemned by every single thinking Australian. The decision taken by that committee is already in the history books. All you people who served in this parliament should know and understand that there will be a history book written and your names will go down in it. That is the reason I resigned from the party. The history books will say that when they did this to the people I represent, I went out and sacrificed. At that stage, no independent member had ever been re-elected to this parliament. So for me, I was cold-bloodedly walking to my own open grave.

I do not come in here to gloat myself up because I started this speech by saying that I stood and watched the sugar industry and the fishing industry hacked to pieces by my party, the tobacco industry hacked to pieces by my party, and I did nothing. I continued on here enjoying my $200,000 a year salary package and jeez it was good. I got up and thundered about how terrible things were for the people in the bush and how wrong the decision was, but I still sat here and took my $200,000.

The dairy industry was just a bridge too far away for me. It was far preferable for me to walk into my open grave than it was to continue to sit in this place and betray the people I represent. I supported a party that was a free-market party and is a free-market party today. A free market means that you remove all constraints, any involvement by the public, any interference in the relationship between buyer and seller. So you can see a situation where there are two buyers in the market and 13,000 sellers and you are going to tell me that we will have a free market!

Unlike most people in this House, I did an economics course at the university. I did not complete the final year but I have done a course in economics. When I went to university, I was told that when there are two buyers and 13,000 sellers that is called an oligopoly and the price will not be determined by the market place; it will be determined by those two people. I conclude on the words of Henry Bournes Higgins, that very great Australian and founder of the Arbitration Commission: 'a contract made by one person is by definition not a contract'. I venture to suggest to this parliament that a contract made by two people is not a contract.

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