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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1893 ..
MR OSBORNE (continuing):
In July last year Canberra had 73 milkos, while there were only 210 in all of New South Wales. Surely that statistic ought not to be regarded as a negative for us as the Minister for Urban Services had previously hinted but rather an indication of the high regard the people of Canberra have for the local industry.
I accept that the government has had its hands tied to some extent. Despite establishing a system and providing the cheapest milk in the country and a stable home delivery structure, its monopoly of the market has inevitably been torn down. With great reluctance, I supported legislation last year that began to dismantle the Milk Authority. However, I did so only because price setting of milk was being maintained in the short term and milkos were to be allowed to extend the range of products they could sell. This legislation also spells the end of price control by the independent pricing commissioner.
The ensuing months have seen the government provide funds to compensate a reduction in the number of milkos and auction off nearly half of their runs. I expect the government feels it has done what it can to help these vendors, but this is very much open to debate. I believe that when government changes the rules it has a moral obligation to deal with those who are affected. In this case, I simply do not accept that that has been done.
The situation the ACT milk industry is in right now shows what an absolute mirage competition policy is. In this instance the public benefit test has been a joke. It was predicted from as long ago as 1997 that, with deregulation, the price of milk would go up, as it has done in every other state with the advent of deregulation. Of course, our experts-and I use the word very loosely-knew differently. I would like to read two brief extracts from Canberra Times reports, the first from 22 December last year and the second from a couple of weeks ago. On 22 December 1999, under the headline "Milk prices tipped to fall", the Canberra Times said:
Milk prices were tipped to plummet yesterday after Victorian dairy farmers voted overwhelmingly to deregulate the dairy industry...
The managing director of Capitol Chilled Food, which markets Canberra Milk ... said deregulation would result in fewer dairy farms but they would be bigger and more efficient.
'Prices will come down,' he said.
Industry sources tipped prices to fall 15c to 20c a litre.
On 4 May 2000, under the headline "Milk likely to cost $1.50 from 1 July", it said:
The cost of a litre of milk in the ACT was likely to increase from $1.22 to $1.50 from July 1, after deregulation. The prediction was made yesterday by the office manager of the Canberra Milk Vendors' Association, Angelo Barich ...
Mr Barich said that ... milk in Queanbeyan was already $1.38 a litre and there was no reason to believe the ACT would not match that after deregulation. Then, with the 11c farmgate levy, the price would be $1.49, probably rounded to $1.50.
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