DAIRY FARMERS

IT IS reported that there are 386 dairies in Queensland. They produce on average 1.1 million litres each per annum.

Currently Ashley Gamble sells his milk to Norco at a reported Total Average Member Return of 58.18 cents per litre. Norco sells some milk to Coles to support the 2011 $1 per litre scam.

If Norco and other dairy manufacturers paid their producers 10 cents per litre extra that would mean there is an extra $42 million in growers’ pockets each year or $110,000 for each dairy.

Consumers should be paying more for dairy products and one accepts that increased electricity costs courtesy of the State Government-owned electricity generators makes that difficult.

Over the past 20 years State Labor has watched the numbers of dairy farms halve. Yet in the first quarter this year Labor increased public servant numbers, and not frontline staff but office dwellers, by 4300 on an average salary of at least $90,000 or $387 million per annum.

The cost side of Ashley Gamble’s problem is that stock feed is attracting record prices as do freight costs.

Is it just possible that within the Australian rural community there are some greedy price gougers taking advantage of people like Ashley Gamble as well as kind-hearted people donating their hard-earned money to donate feed?

Will State Labor insist on a drought Royal Commission? Will they examine why over $2 billion was spent on a desalination plant yet there is no water for Ashley Gamble to irrigate and grow his own feed? When water was short for inner city Labor Greens no expense was spared.

When it is short for regional areas it is so sad, too bad. Build the pipeline from the Burdekin and build more dams Labor. Subsidise water retention in the bush the same as Labor subsidises urban Labor Green solar panels in Brisbane.

Climate change is happening so why isn’t Labor promoting available water replacement strategies to support the water they are stripping away from farmers and graziers?

If the Arabs can irrigate their country why can’t Labor irrigate the Darling Downs? They gave Cubby Station a leg up, why not others like Ashley Gamble? No money is probably the answer.

JOHN FRIEND, Toowoomba