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The Gillard Government


Gillard and swan are still blaming Howard even though they promised to stop the blame game after the first year. NSW I haven't heard too much from Barry regarding labor stuffing up the state of late or from CNew up in QLD. Maybe they have I just haven't heard it.


Yeah I don't know if you could call anything the libs doing atm as austerity measures. They are barely making a scratch to the surface of the bloated govt departments, imo he isn't going far enough.
 
That puts them in it too, literally.
 
That puts them in it too, literally.

Swans garbage is coming home to roost.

Another recession, we had to have, under Labor, coming up.IMO

Thankfully we have the mining tax and carbon tax, to see us over.lol

Now there is a lot of talk about Australia needing to adopt a food and agriculture economy. Doesn't it just crack you up the irony of it.
 
Now there is a lot of talk about Australia needing to adopt a food and agriculture economy. Doesn't it just crack you up the irony of it.

Absolutely laughable. The average age of farmers is reported to be 62, and fruit producers in their late 50's.

Australia will be in a food shock in as little as the next 5 years.

We can't compete against countries that:

a) subsidise their growers
b) pay a dollar a day wages

Good luck with that.

Don't get me started on the biosecurity threat the imports we already have entering the country possess.
 

Don't worry about it, we will have a lot of younger farmers here soon, as China buys up the farms.

Also China won't have any problem finding the money to get the water from the north for irrigation.lol
We would rather spend it on high speed download, what a hoot.
 

Just to add more detail. There used to be 15 fruit exporters out the Perth area around 20 years ago. Today there are just 2.

My father manages one of them. I asked him about export volumes over the last 20 years just last week for a counter action to an idiotic Govt report.
From memory he exported over 200,000 boxes of fruit (from memory, the figure may be much higher) 20 years ago. This year he did less than 25,000.

We find it hard to land a box of plums in Asia for under $25 without losing money. Our competitors, mainly Chile, Argentina and South Africa can land them for around $10-12. They grow fruit of good exportable quality, much like us.

We have been annihilated from world wide markets and the same future looms locally.
 

As you get a bit older you tend to see how all parts of society are self serving, government included.
Your dad probably "killed the pig" when things were good, which he should have done.

IMO The problem we have now.
We have a global economy, we buy stuff on the internet, other countries look at us and see what they can compete on.
They know what your overheads are and price accordingly.
IMO the only advantages we have over other countries are:
Easily accessable minerals, but high extraction costs.
Huge coal reserves, thereby cheap energy. But won't use it for illogical pollitical reasons.
Massive arable land areas, we have 22 times more than China and 4 times more than the U.S.

But for some reason we are spending 'bling' money on improving internet speeds to the house.
So they can do WHAT.
 
We have far more to offer to the world than what's in the ground.
We have a highly educated, experienced and healthy population, with a work ethic second to very few. We may have to adjust structurally to various pressures from around the world but I don't think we're doomed.
 
Our main problem is that our forward thinking is only four years or so (i.e. the next election).
 

Not trying to pick a fight..

Link.


If you look at a number of reports he has made, you are correct in that he has adopted a neutral position. But his opinion pieces appear to correlate with what you think he should have done and it may be that ole chestnet about bias in the media i.e. people do try to do reporting from a neutral perspective but it is seen through our own perspectives.
 
As you get a bit older you tend to see how all parts of society are self serving, government included.
Your dad probably "killed the pig" when things were good, which he should have done.

You would think so but 20 years ago the export price on a tray of peaches was anywhere from $5-10. A 13kg box of plums was $12-18.

Doesn't leave a lot of fat for profit. Of course costs were low as was the AUD was lower.

Even with the AUD as low as 80c Aussie fruit producers would still be uncompetitive.

Dad thinks that even with the AUD at 70c we would still be behind the 8-ball.

Anyways sorry for sidetracking, but Ludwig has been a disaster for food production.

Funnily enough if you ask the guys in the Perth Hill's who their favourite State Ag Minister was and nearly to a man they will say Kim Chance (Labor).
 
Obviously the Thomson issue and the Gillard issue are going to stay on 'simmer' mode untill after the election.
Ditto the Slipper issue which is now scheduled for the next court hearing in December.
 
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