Senator Pauline Hanson has delivered a “please explain” to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Deputy PM and agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce, saying they continue to drag their feet on a number of issues related to Queensland.
Senator Hanson was scathing of what she saw as the government’s lack of will to force Wilmar to provide Burdekin canegrowers with a fair ongoing agreement.
“Our governments, past and present, have allowed foreign interests to buy up our industries, agriculture and infrastructure leaving ourselves wide open to control and exploration,” she said.
“These cane farmers have sought my help because they are at their wits end.
“They have spoken with Barnaby Joyce but all they got were broken promises and now he has stopped returning their calls.
“I put the Prime Minister in contact with a representative from the cane growers. The PM assured me he would follow this up.
“Apparently it was passed back to Barnaby Joyce’s office so the merry-go-round continues.”
Ms Hanson said every day brought affected farmers one step closer to ruin.
“Wilmar has all the sugar mills and rail lines in the Burdekin under their control. This means Wilmar has what amounts to a regional monopoly on the milling of cane throughout the Burdekin Basin.
“Wilmar is using this as leverage against our cane growers and are refusing to finalise a fair deal. At the end of the day, foreign companies care nothing about Australia or its long term growth. Instead they only care about making a quick buck.
“This is not good enough. These cane growers are being held hostage.
“I want to know, why does it appear that Barnaby has thrown this into the too hard basket?”
Ms Hanson also asked why other Queensland Senators and representatives weren’t speaking out on the issue federally.
She has organised a meeting on Friday with the CEO and senior executives of Wilmar and representatives of affected canegrowers “to sort out a fair and equitable outcome for the mutual benefit of all parties”.
If there’s no resolution at that, she said she was prepared to fly to the head office of Wilmar in Singapore.
The Wilmar stand-off was also the subject of an opinion piece by Katter’s Australia Party state leader, Rob Katter published by the Queensland Country Life this week.
Mr Katter called for “a fast-tracked resolution to the stand-off between thousands of cane farmers in the north who have no Cane Supply Agreement (CSA), which allows them to forward price to capture fundamentally high prices.”
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce’s office has been contacted for comment.