Angry wheat farmers disrupted Australia's parliament on Monday, jeering and calling out from public galleries as the government passed laws to allow permanent competition for wheat marketing and exports. The new laws, to start from July 1, allow ongoing competition to market Australia's wheat crop, ending the monopoly single desk marketing arrangement previously held by AWB Ltd.
"The passing of the bill gives growers certainty for the current wheat crop, which will be harvested from October," Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said. The new laws created division among farmers and the conservative side of Australian politics, with many farmers and the rural-based National Party wanting to retain the single desk, saying the monopoly helped maximise prices for Australian wheat.
But the senior conservative Liberal Party supported the new laws, which it championed before it lost power in national elections last November. The Australian government has forecast a winter wheat crop of 23.68 million tonnes for 2008/09, an 80 percent increase on the drought-hit 13.04 million tonnes in 2007/08.
AWB Ltd remains Australia's largest wheat exporter, but lost its monopoly in 2007 after a judicial inquiry a year earlier found the company paid $222 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in return for wheat sales. The new laws will allow Australia's wheat industry regulator to accredit new companies to market and export wheat, and ensure they are granted access to bulk grain port terminals.
The regulator, Wheat Exports Australia, will also have the power to suspend or cancel marketing and export accreditation. Some farmers, particularly from the New South Wales state, pushed to retain the single desk and accused the government of opening the way for multinational companies to control Australian wheat sales.