Just a week after SunRice announced reduced shifts at its Riverina mills, Labor’s draft platform claimed it would “encourage value adding and processing opportunities for agriculture, fisheries and forestry products that support regional jobs and economies.”
MRSG chair Geoff Moar says the statement rings hollow for Murray-Darling Basin communities still being hit by unnecessary and untargeted water buybacks.
“It’s not just rice,” Mr Moar said.
“We’ve seen dairy production fall, tomato processing shrink, and fruit processing in the Goulburn hammered as well.”
He said that it defies common sense that, on the one hand, Labor wants to encourage agricultural processing when they are stripping Australia’s food bowl of its most crucial input - water.
Mr Moar said processors rely on economies of scale, and water recovery directly undermines that.
“It’s as if they don’t understand the basics - you need water to grow food.
“When there’s less water, there’s less productivity. And when productivity drops, processing plants slow down or shut, and regional jobs disappear.
“We’ve warned successive governments: when you take water out of the system, you reduce farmers’ productive capacity. That flows straight down the value add chain.
“When rice tonnages fall, milling production drops. That impacts workers, their families, and the regional communities they support.”
Mr Moar said the biggest risk is long term structural decline.
“The productive loss won’t bounce back when it rains again. The market has shifted so far because of buybacks that commodities like rice, dairy and tomatoes are becoming unviable.
“Even the government’s own economic statements show that continuing water recovery will see further decline in these industries - yet they keep buying regardless.”
Mr Moar said if Labor is serious about supporting regional jobs, it must stop undermining the very industries it claims to champion.
“I’d like to see them genuinely support regional jobs by getting out of the water market and letting our communities get back to feeding and clothing the nation.”
