Strayan stupidity on display again today:
Australia’s sugar industry may be the next flashpoint for a split within the federal Coalition ahead of the tabling of a Productivity Commission report that is understood to question the competitiveness and tax treatment of a sector that has also been at loggerheads with its biggest foreign investor.
…The report comes amid a protracted dispute between marketing house Queensland Sugar Limited, cane growers and global commodities group Wilmar International, over the nature and details of supply contracts. The dispute that has become increasingly politicised.
Last week, Queensland Opposition leader Tim Nicholls sent a letter to Wilmar’s Singapore-based chairman and chief executive Kuok Khoon Hong urging him to resolve the impasse in the finalisation of cane supply and on supply agreements. The letter dated December 16, which was copied to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mr Joyce but not Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, noted that Wilmar was the last of seven milling companies operating in Queensland to complete agreements with QSL.
Wilmar became Australia’s largest producer of raw sugar, after spending more than $1.5 billion acquiring CSR, then the world’s fifth-largest sugar-refiner. It has since invested a further $850 million in mill upgrades and maintenance and employs as many as 2000 across its sugar mills, refineries and ethanol facilities. It produces 60 per cent of Queensland’s raw sugar.
Wilmar also bought Australia’s largest, listed food manufacturer Goodman Fielder, which owns brands such as Wonder White bread, MeadowLea margarine and Praise mayonnaise, for $1.3 billion in 2015.
Mr Nicholls, leader of Queensland’s Liberal National Party, wrote to Mr Kuok, who chairs a $23 billion company, stating: “The LNP hears regularly about all sorts of reasons why negotiations have stalled. Quite frankly we have heard enough, especially when the other millers have succeeded with contractual arrangements with QSL and most of their growers. Please be assured the LNP has absolutely no intention of backing down on the amendments to sugar legislation in Queensland that were needed to ensure growers genuine choice in marketing.”
Liberal Party free market zealots sold a vertically integrated sugar monopoly to foreign interests and now the economic nationalist Nats want it back via political interference.
Good to see the grown-ups in charge.
Sovereign risk anyone?
