It’s getting harder to farm
FOR years I’ve been listening to our Canegrowers board tell us that we need to be apolitical if we cane farmers are to have any chance of advancing decent policy that is in the best interest of our industry.
However, it is becoming harder and harder to accept this argument.
Despite the considerable lengths farmers undertake to be environmentally friendly, the Queensland Labor government is still making it harder and harder to farm. We are strangled with green tape and bureaucracy to the point where some are threatening to leave this $2 billion Queensland industry.
I think it is time our Canegrowers board and other farming boards change their point of view and try a fresh approach to stand up for their farmers and our sugar industry.
People who live in regions dependant on sugar and are staunch Labor voters need to realise that while they might think voting Labor will protect their jobs and wages, this same political party is focused on creating laws that will reduce sugar industry profitability.
The Palaszczuk government is more interested in gathering votes in Brisbane than protecting North Queensland sugar jobs. Premier Palaszczuk and Treasurer Trad no longer try to win the votes of working men and women in regional Queensland – they only seem to care about the votes of Brisbane greenies.
We have to respond to this. We cannot remain apolitical any longer. Mario Quagliata, Feluga 1989: Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke (above) weeps on television as he admits to having an extramarital affair. 2001: Space shuttle Discovery glides to a predawn touchdown, bringing home the first residents of the International Space Station. 2009: Anna Bligh becomes the first woman in Australia to be elected premier when Labor wins the Queensland election. 2015: In a bid to stem an outbreak of the deadly ebola outbreak, Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Koroma orders his country’s entire population to stay in their homes for three days. 2017: Four teenagers from Darwin’s Don Dale youth detention centre are awarded $53,000 in compensation from the Northern Territory government after they were spithooded and shackled.