July 31, 2013
Nationals leader and Member for Wide Bay Warren Truss said today the Federal Government must reject the proposed buyout of GrainCorp by US conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).
“Newly anointed Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s blasé dismissal of farmers’ concerns about the proposed buy-out of Australia’s largest listed agribusiness illustrates how out-of-touch Labor is with the food security needs and opportunities for our country,” Mr Truss said.
“Mr Fitzgibbon told the Australian Grains Industry Conference yesterday: ‘I am a believer in competition, in the market, and that we should embrace foreign investment. That might give you some hint of my initial views on this issue.’
“Mr Fitzgibbon’s clumsy entry into the GrainCorp takeover, a vital national issue, is astonishing. It confirms that no one in Labor, including the Agriculture Minister, appreciates the critical value of Australia’s farmland and agribusinesses for the future of our nation.
“We need to grow our food-producing sectors to feed mounting global demand. Losing GrainCorp to foreign interests would see Australia relinquish control over our east coast grain storage and export facilities and, with them, control over our grain producing future.
“Labor seems content to sit and watch the dominoes tumble, as one-by-one our best placed and most successful agribusinesses fall into foreign hands. Our grains industry alone is worth $9 billion a year and accounts for almost 20 million hectares of Australian farmland.
“At this rate, control over those assets, along with the profits they produce, will go offshore and Australia will have little left to call our own.
“The opportunities of the Asian economic and population boom are very real, but unless we harness and safeguard our valuable agricultural assets, all the decisions about Australia’s farming future will be made in boardrooms in other parts of the world.
“Australia’s national interests rest with Ministers in training wheels. For the first time since the election of the first Rudd government, Australia has an Agriculture Minister who does not live in a capital city.
“Farmers had hoped Mr Fitzgibbon might have some understanding of agriculture, but his comments on the ADM takeover show how out-of-touch he is with farmers and their concerns.
“The future of the Australian grain industry in the eastern states rests in the unsure hands of Minister’s who’ve been in their portfolios for a month.
“Now it falls to another ministerial newbie, Treasurer Chris Bowen, to block the takeover deal. But if Treasurer Bowen thinks the sale of GrainCorp is in the national interest, then he must come clean with the public and tells us why.
“GrainCorp operates seven of the nine bulk export terminals along the eastern seaboard at Mackay, Gladstone, Fisherman Islands (Brisbane), Carrington (Newcastle), Port Kembla, Geelong and Portland, and handles around 80 per cent of Queensland, NSW and Victorian grain exports.
“Its storage and logistics assets include more than 280 storage sites, with capacity for 21 million tonnes, along with 19 grain trains. It also has three container loading facilities at Fisherman Islands, Sunshine (Melbourne) and Geelong. These facilities can handle up to 400,000 tonnes of export product.
“Meanwhile, SA grain export facilities are already owned by Canada’s Viterra, the Port of Melbourne facility is 50 per cent owned by Japan’s Sumitomo and Australia’s Emerald Group, and the second small Brisbane Port facility by Singapore’s Wilmar.
“If GrainCorp is allowed to be swallowed up by ADM, all bulk grain exporting capacity in SA, NSW, Queensland, and all but half of just one port in Victoria, would be in foreign hands. Australians will not outright own a single eastern seaboard grain handling facility.
“Australian farmers will be servants to foreign masters. The infrastructure serving Australia’s iconic and growing eastern grains industry will be controlled lock, stock and barrel by foreign companies. And the profits will be shared by foreign shareholders.
“In this emerging era of food scarcity, how is that in Australia’s national interests?”
