New shots are being fired in the long-running war over Australia's bulk wheat export monopoly as new season grain begins to flow into AWB Ltd's export pool from a drought-depleted crop.
A newly-formed group backed by rivals of AWB who hope to export in competition with the former Australian Wheat Board this week released an opinion poll which showed that only 25 percent of wheat growers planned to sell into AWB's export pool.
The group, called Grains Policy Institute, said that this contradicted findings of an inquiry this year by businessman John Ralph, who was appointed by the government to canvass growers' views on marketing Australian wheat exports.
After a 2006 judicial inquiry found that AWB had paid $222 million in kickbacks to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to secure sales, the Ralph committee found that a majority of wheat growers wanted Australia's controversial wheat export monopoly to stay, though not necessarily operated by AWB. This week's poll result may not as straightforward a contradiction of the Ralph findings as it seems to be.
The poll, conducted by independent group Roy Morgan Research, also found that 18 percent of growers polled planned to sell their wheat to a non-AWB provider of an export pool, while 32 percent said they planned to sell to a local trader or merchant, or warehouse the wheat and decide later.
The poll result needs to be seen in the context of the impact of drought, with Australia's wheat crop forecast at only 12 million tonnes, half the size of a normal crop. Most production will be from Western Australia, which could turn in close to 6 million tonnes of wheat, while output will be drastically reduced from the eastern states.
Normally the second biggest producer, New South Wales will this year produce a winter crop of only around 2 million tonnes, figures released by the state government show.
The Roy Morgan poll found that 53 percent of Western Australian wheat growers planned to sell their wheat to AWB's export pool, compared with only 15 percent in New South Wales, 14 percent in South Australia and 23 percent in Victoria.
AWB welcomed this finding, while the Grains Policy Institute, backed by AWB rivals GrainCorp Ltd and Western Australia's Co-operative Bulk Handling, claimed that the poll showed little support among growers for the AWB export pool. Prime Minister Howard has given the wheat industry a deadline of March 1 to come up with a new grower-owned company to operate a wheat export monopoly, or "single desk", which has already been watered down by partial de-regulation.
This week's shots show that contenders for the wheat export prize-fight are entering the ring for the final round. But will Australian Prime Minister John Howard be around to see his March 1 deadline come into effect? Facing a November 24 election, Howard's government is trailing badly in opinion polls.
The Opposition, led by Kevin Rudd who attacked the government relentlessly last year over what he claimed was complicity in AWB's "wheat for weapons" scandal, has promised a new, more de-regulated, system for Australian wheat exports. This would involve formation of a new group, Wheat Exports Australia, which would maintain the export monopoly, known as the single desk, but offer a range of selling options.