Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Sterle I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) in April 2018, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) dairy inquiry produced a report to government which concluded that:

(A) farmers lack of bargaining power means that they are unlikely to benefit from an increase in the retail (or wholesale) prices, and

(B) even if processors were to receive higher wholesale prices from sales to supermarkets, this does not mean the processors will pay farmers any more than they have to, to secure milk,

(ii) on 26 August 2020, the Treasurer and the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management announced an ACCC inquiry into:

(A) harmful imbalances of bargaining power between farmers, intermediaries, including processors, and retailers in the domestic supply chains of perishable agricultural goods in Australia, and

(B) the effectiveness of the new Dairy Code of Conduct;

(b) recognises that the ACCC Agricultural Commissioner, Mr Mick Keogh, has confirmed that the current dairy code 'doesn't make any requirements in relation to notions of fairness about the price that's received by the farmer'; and

(c) calls on the Government to expand its ACCC inquiry to investigate how it can regulate the price of milk per litre paid by processors to dairy farmers to ensure a viable dairy industry.