Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Hanson, for your question. Our government is taking credible action to support our dairy farmers and it's been doing that since day one. When Fonterra and MG clawed back money from dairy farmers, it was the National Party in government—Barnaby Joyce was the ag minister at the time—that called the dairy industry to Melbourne. I was actually in the room. We got the ACCC inquiry up and going. That was one recommendation of that. Anyone in this room who thinks a dairy code is going to solve every problem for the dairy industry in this country is kidding themselves. It is one part of a suite of initiatives to support this industry.

Right now, we have historically high dairy prices, but our dairy farmers are doing it tough because they have incredibly high input costs. Electricity in your home state, Senator Hanson, for this perishable product is controlled by the Palaszczuk Labor government. So go and knock on their door for that one. Then there are water prices for those of us that have irrigated dairy. It's an incredibly high input cost. And the drought has driven the cost of fodder through the roof—