George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite having crops already in the ground and the best prices for years, most cane farmers have not signed cane supply agreements with Wilmar because Wilmar's proposed agreements deny farmers their right to choice in marketing of their sugar. Singaporean miller, Wilmar, which own eight mills in North Queensland, took out a full page ad in the papers last week to complain about the poor publicity it is getting—but the publicity is completely justified. Wilmar's ad did not mention its failure to negotiate an on-supply agreement with QSL. Without this agreement, canegrowers do not have the choice in marketing that Queensland legislated to provide. Wilmar claims to be negotiating in good faith but facts say otherwise. Wilmar made details of its offer to QSL confidential, stopping QSL from publicly pointing out the unfair nature of that contract. But then Wilmar cherry-picked parts of the 'confidential' proposal on Friday and emailed it to growers. If Wilmar truly believed that it was a fair and honest negotiation, it would release all of the details of that negotiation.

When farmers asked for a seat at the negotiation table—after all, it is their livelihoods at stake here—QSL agreed but Wilmar refused. If Wilmar does not give growers their right to choice in marketing, there will be action. If Wilmar continues its push to turn canegrowers into peasants, it will force the hand of government and the code of conduct that has already been drafted will be legislated and enforced to ensure that a foreign corporation can never ride roughshod over canegrowers in this country ever again.