Sep 30, 2024
You might recall the “old” National Competition Policy and Principles. That’s the highy theoretical, economist-driven, philosophical document that resulted in removal of the Meat Poultry growers’ Countervailing power legislation in all states, resulting in grower not even having a full ability to use delegates to negotiate thier comtacts for them. Even the ACCC law changes in 2023 (changes to the Australian Consumer Law) did not provide growers with any significant countervailing power, although Class Exemptions that allow growers to compare contracts and prices have been a bit useful. 
Well, The government’s at it again. Now they want to overhaul the National Competition Policy and Principles – so they went out to consultation for a selected few. ACGC was notified of this review 1 working day before close of submissions – so it was “all hands to the wheel”. The overarching theme is that competition policy ONLY works when there is strong regulatory backup (like a mandatory Code, for example) – otherwise competition descends into thuggery and coercion. We suggest every member review the ACGC response – you’d bet the processors are!
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NATIONAL COMPETITION POLICY PRINCIPLES REVIEW CONSULTATION PAPER
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ACGC RESPONSE.
Sep 30, 2024
The old National Water Plan, published in the early 2000’s, brought us (eventually)
- the highly contested Murray Darling Basin Plan
- State goverments getting involved in your dam storages
- a trading scheme for water that works poorly during drought….. and so on.
NOW the government wants to impose a NEW National Water Plan. It appears that they were very secretive about it – even though meat poultry are BIG (if very efficient) users of water, there was no consultation at all and the only way we found out was becuase the SA DPI (“PIRSA”) was so horrified by what they saw that they contacted all the Agricultural peak bodies who’s industries operate in South Australia adn brought it to all our attention.
The proposed new Plan: 
- does NOT consider water use for food production,
- does not consider any water use at all for livestock
- gives Indigenous “cultural” water needs/use exactly the same weighting in water allocation as drinking water for “townies”,
- does NOT consider desalination as an option for water, even in urban areas,
- proposes that things can be changed later by “schedules” that are not present in the plan (sound like a meat poultry contract?)
- quotes “indigenous needs” from a report that states on page 3 that the views of the writers do not represent Indigenous peoples……and so on.
ACGC was caught on short notice and was not able to circulate this to all members, but did ask Directors (and their organisations), Associate Members and policy Councillors for comment – and we were surprised how much interest and comment there was! This thing has a way to play out, and now ACGC has clearly identified that it is a stakeholder we should be included in further consultations.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE DISCUSSION PAPER
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ACGC RESPONSE
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