SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE
THE NATIONALS SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND
SPEECH
Event: Rural Press Club of Victoria
Date: 26th October 2007
Venue: North Ballarat Football Club
Subject: Why the family farm is the best outcome for Australia.
I have an interest in Roman History and one of the facets that the emperor was always cautious to uphold was the settlement of campaign veterans on farm land. It was not for production as much of the grain was imported for Rome, especially from Egypt, but rather it was sense of justice for duty performed and to promote an attachment to the Roman Empire.
When I was working at home in my teenage years I would challenge my father as to why he let shooters on the property as I found them a pain in the neck at times. His reply always stuck with me “how can you expect a person to love their country when you do not allow them to step foot on it”.
Both these issues have the same sentiment. There is more to the general ownership of land than just economics; it goes to the fundamentals of what a nation is and what is the benefaction of leadership.
The populous, being the predominant owner of the land area in a direct and tradeable manner, is a reflection of the populous wealth and is a statement that the people of the nation are the predominant benefactors of the purpose of the nation.
When the populous can only aspire to be merely tenant labourers then the love of our nation is distracted by the impediments to our aspiration of ownership.
The US the EU, China & Japan may all speak the mantra of free trade but they clearly understand that the realities of domestic politics are underpinned by constants in human aspiration. They know that the desertion of the family farm is perceived as a dereliction in a litmus test of the delivery of providence to all citizens.
The surface of the globe is a constant and there is no more land being created, money is ink on paper backed by the confidence that no one realises it is only that. Shares can be no more than an idea and lately we have seen the re-emergence of the animal spirit that is so restless it baulks at specific historical dates such as the 20th anniversary of the share market collapse of 1987.
The real definition of wealth is clear title to real property, the ultimate unforgeable asset and generator of further wealth. Land is the ultimate safe for gains made at the tables of chance elsewhere. Australia’s love for the family home is another manifestation of this belief in the ultimate underlying security in land.
When this article of economics is eroded by legislative changes that compromise the tenure or rights of freehold property then this tilts the whole dynamic of where wealth resides. Land Tenure is only as strong as the documentation that supports it and the willingness of the government to stand behind that documentation.
When the government instigates the dispossession of certain rights of ownership, such as vegetation rights lately and in the past mineral rights, then the protector becomes the thief. We start to mimic the inherent flaws of communal ownership, as portrayed by communism but firmly rejected by outcome and economics.
The Emperor knows that the greatest chance of his own survival comes from the wider participation and ownership of rural land by the empire’s citizens.
The Producer Support Estimate measures current global government support for agriculture. It is the proportion of farm income derived from government support, relative to the gross value of production.
The OECD average in 2006 was 27% with the US at 11% and the EU at 32%. Japan is at 53%, Korea is 63%, Canada is 23% and Australia is at 6%. I believe that in the future these various nations will act as they did in the past and, although some nations may trim their support, they will make absolutely certain that they remain with the capacity to feed themselves.
Nations have suffered the vagaries of control of vital imports such as fuel and they will make sure the capacity to produce food remains dispersed so as to not be infected with the oligopolistic, cartel like controls of oil companies.
Food is the key to a nation's sovereignty more than any other consumer item and its security is at the apex of any government’s responsibility, though governments have a tendency to forget this. Cheap food comes from multiple producers supplying the market and competing in the market.
A small number of buyers for this produce lead to the exploitation of that principle and the best example of this is milk at the farm gate that is sold for 38 cents a litre and you buy it from your local supermarket for $1.80.
It is chestnuts like these that are bringing the demise of the succession plan of the family farm from parents to children. Why would you get out of bed at 3:30 am milking twice a day when far more money is made wrapping milk in plastic and putting it on a shelf?
The statement is often made that the market will prevail. Well, that may be the case and I suppose we can import and reconstitute ultra heated treated milk from the subsidised EU and I do not believe that EU farmers or New Zealand farmers will hold us over a barrel but those who control the mechanisms of supply will, once they control the distribution chain.
When this happens the consumer has nowhere else to go. The removal of competitive pressure provided by farmers and small businesses would be detrimental to consumers. Farmers and small businesses keep the big corporates honest on behalf of consumers. We, as a nation, need to start recognising this simple truth about the role of farmers and small businesses.
We cannot get ethanol onto the market, to the demise of Queensland cane farmers, because oil companies stymie, stall or strangle its retail. The petrol market is highly concentrated, allowing the oil companies to squeeze out independents and exert a stranglehold on the market. Once independent competition is lost, it is lost forever.
The barriers to entry in the petrol market are insurmountable as the oil companies control everything from the wellhead to the bowser. If this situation was transposed to the retail of food how could the nation reinitiate the production of dairy, if lost, through farmers being driven out of business by big corporates intent on driving farm prices down to uneconomic levels?
The same argument stands for everything from brussels sprouts to bananas.
If you bring in imported bananas, you destroy the Australian banana industry and the mechanisms of competition are destroyed by the lack of access from that point forward to the centralised control of supply from, let's say, the Philippines.
Profit is made by margin, not purely the purchase price or the retail price, so in the future a retailer does not mind paying a little more if they can sell it for a lot more because there is no alternative for the consumer as there is a strong supply line relationship from a source that potential competitors are excluded from.
Ultimately, a nation forfeits their food sovereignty to another nation and places itself in a position of future duress. Control of supply and retail is more powerful than production.
Consumers should be very concerned by the growing levels of power exerted b