Dairy Industry

The majority voted in favour of disagreeing with the motion to suspend the usual procedural rules - known as standing orders - in order to let a vote happen. In other words, they voted against letting the MP for Kennedy Bob Katter (Katter's Australian Party) move his motion related to the dairy industry.

Motion text

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Kennedy from moving the following motion forthwith:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) on 6 May 2020 the Minister for Agriculture put out a media release titled "Time to stop milking dairy, fair go for farmers";

(b) nearly 500 dairy farmers have left the industry in the past year;

(c) the ACCC in 2018 identified that there is a market imbalance between processors and farmers;

(d) in the state of Queensland alone the number of dairy farmers has dropped from 1,305 in 2000-2001 to 356 in 2019;

(e) Australia had 12,896 dairy farms in the year 2000;

(f) in 2018 there were just 5,699 dairy farms, a reduction of 57 per cent which is likely to have increased in the last 12 months;

(g) in the North Queensland dairy area before deregulation farmers got 60.4 cents per litre, but after deregulation they got 41.1 cents;

(h) Dairy Australia's Situation and Outlook March 2020 report says dairy farmers have been impacted by the summer bushfires adding additional price pressures to their operations, including in:

(i) NSW, 32 dairy farms on the south coast and far south coast and eight on the mid coast;

(ii) North East Victoria, 35 dairy farms directly affected and 11 more operations significantly impacted;

(iii) East Gippsland in Victoria, approximately 30 dairy farms affected in the direct fire zone with varying degrees of impact, including two known to have lost major assets; and

(iv) South Australia, 12 dairy farms affected by fires prior to Christmas;

(i) Dairy Australia has also stated a range of factors weighed on economic growth last year, including geopolitical tensions, trade policy uncertainty, social unrest and stressed emerging markets and overall, growth in global output fell 0.7 per cent to 2.9 per cent, the lowest level since the 2008-09 financial crisis;

(j) the Australian Dairy Situation Analysis dated May 2019 states that Australian dairy farmers operate in a deregulated and open market, leaving them quite exposed to the product price adjustments induced by global market shocks and associated flow on impact to farm gate milk prices, which, coupled with increased volatility in the availability and pricing of key production inputs such as water and feed has undermined local farmer confidence in the long term dairy market outlook and the scope to extract reliable returns from their milk to build a longer term future; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) give more support to Australia's dairy farmers;

(b) instruct the ACCC to develop a minimum farmgate milk price;

(c) enforce the minimum farmgate milk price through the Dairy Code of Conduct; and

(d) as an interim measure, provide a mechanism for mandating the voluntary milk levy until the minimum farmgate price is established or create an offence to purchase fresh milk below the minimum price to farmers that will be set by an arbitration authority designated by the ACCC.