Media Release

AUSTRALIAN Party leader Bob Katter has accused a delegation of Aussie farm leaders of "floating a cloud of false hope" in continuing to back a government push to remove international agricultural free trade restrictions.

Instead of joining Federal Trade Minister Craig Emerson in Canada this week to lobby against the rest of the world’s agricultural subsidies, tariffs and restrictions, the Cairns Group delegation should instead be demanding our government provide similar protections for Australia until other countries agree, said the Federal Member for Kennedy.

"Trade is hard-boiled reciprocity, not self-promoting sycophancy; and the reality is that we should be joining the human race instead of trying to be the global trade teacher’s pet," said Mr Katter.

"At one recent trade conference, people laughed at Australian delegates after a comment about ‘the Taliban of international trade’ – the inference being that we were fanatical fundamentalists."

Mr Katter said the farming delegates should: "Wake up to yourselves – this has been going on for 30 years and you’ve made not the slightest bit of progress. The last time I looked, the OECD report had had Australia on 4 per cent subsidy tariffs (TSE) while the rest of the world was enjoying 41 per cent support from their governments. And to keep having people believe that these countries are actually going to remove their support levels... of course they’re not!"

But it was not simply a matter of "flogging the deadest of horses", warned Mr Katter.

"If the National Farmers Federation put in one-tenth of the time it spent promoting international free trade on convincing the Australian Government of its most basic responsibility to ensure the security of a level playing field for our food producers, then some 50,000-60,000 of our farmers who have gone broke would be prospering today. And those who are left would be making money instead of figuring out their next story to tell the banks."

Mr Katter added that a skyrocketing $AUD was now tightening the noose around the necks of Aussie farmers who had been hung out to dry by both sides of politics shamelessly joining forces to promote the free market benefits to their big business mates.

"Farmers don’t benefit from the free market – it’s the two retailing giants and big foreign-owned financial corporations who profit at farmers’ expense," said Mr Katter.

"Just take a look at our now-woeful wool industry as a classic example: before Keating it was our biggest exporter."