So three major world leaders, Anthony Albanese, Keir Starmer and Donald J Trump, are addressing their nations on the same day! 🧐
There’s nothing to see here.
I’m sure everything’s fine, right? 🙃
ALBANESE SELLS OUT THE REGIONS…AGAIN
The EU trade agreement is a bad deal for Australian agriculture and an even worse deal for dairy.
It gives European farmers greater access to our market, without delivering the same for Australian farmers in theirs.
The Government has removed the tariff on European cheese, which was there to stop imported products being sold cheaper than Australian dairy.
European dairy farmers have a large part of their costs covered by their governments, which lets them sell dairy cheaper, while Australian farmers have to cover those costs themselves.
That means more imported cheese coming into Australia, more of it on supermarket shelves, and less room for Australian dairy farmers to sell their product.
For every tonne we sell into Europe, they send more than 30 back to us. Australia is already importing close to $1 billion worth of European dairy each year, while exporting only a small amount back, and this deal increases that gap.
Europe is already forecasting a 48% increase in dairy exports into Australia because of this deal.
At the same time, this deal delivers no commercially meaningful improvement in access into Europe; so while their farmers can sell more here, ours are still limited in what they can sell there.
There are also new rules around product names, which will restrict Australian producers from using names like feta, gruyere and romano, even though these have been used by local businesses for years.
The Government walked away from a better deal in 2023 and has now come back and accepted a worse one.
Farmers are already under pressure from water buybacks, rising energy prices, fuel and fertiliser costs, and this deal puts real pressure on whether family dairy farms can stay open. Once local farms close, we rely more on imports.
Australian farmers have always been willing to compete with imports as long as the competition is on a level playing field.
This deal destroys that level playing field.
@SamBirrell2
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson reacts to .. Anthony Albanese’s national address on the fuel crisis.
“One blunder after another,” Ms Hanson told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.
“I think they are very concerned; they haven’t been upfront to the Australian People..
https://t.co/CngxVzk9pH via @YouTube