You promoting Alan Jones , well the road to Damascus must be very busy ...

Thought all the righties would be interested once they saw "Jones" name mentioned.

Shame on you gerry - feeding the pigeons again. You should know better than to expect a sensible response to a topical thread.

We recently hired a skip bin for a few days...it was on the nature strip locked.

I used my 6x4 trailer to take loads to it from the house and cars in the street stopped when they saw me filling it asking are you moving / where to/ how much / where do you get your money.

I told them all a different story and had lots of fun.

The rumour in town now is that we sell drugs and have bought a multi million dollar mansion and a yacht in Metung village ( very posh).....LOL

Tall popppy syndrome

I need the yacht to get the drugs you see....LOL

It is a sad situation with people on farms in Australia, and many as the man in the story was, forced off their property after a life's work. We went into farming and lost around $600,000 which was our early retirement and we thought we were set to become very wealthy. It never happened :( :(

Cheap imports and cheap milk products are giving farmers less money to keep their farms going, than when peoiple could (not now) say Farmers were "really  doing well - those rich farm cockys".

How sad to see families 3rd generation on the family farm, have to walk off.

I read "The Grapes Of Wrath" when I was 18 and we'll remember feeling shocked by the callousness of the banking corporations and other greedy exploiters, and profoundly moved by the intrinsic caring goodness, honesty, decency and helplessness of the families turfed off their land and out of their homes. I feel similar having read David Pascoe's letter. Well may we ask why we do not hear of this in the media. I suddenly find myself feeling a tad of liking for Alan Jones for broadcasting it. The National Party is useless, does not truly R epresent rural folk, and Barnaby Joyce justifies his negligence and incompetence by shifting the blame. It is unfortunate that those poor farmers mentioned are blaming themselves and are remaining passive. We need people power today like never before because we indeed are facing our own "Grapes of Wrath". 

Thanks for putting this up Gerry.

Robi,

The State Nats in Western Australia do a rather good job for country people as compared to their Federal counterparts.

A force to be reckoned with.

SD

Farming is a business like any other and should not be supported by the taxpayers. 

The Nats are doing a good job in WA of getting Royalties from Minng spent on the Regions .

Should we fail to support our farmers and other producers/manufacturers, we will lose the ability to produce our own goods and become reliant on overseas suppliers. At least here in Australia we have some control of quality, hygiene etc. I would rather pay a little more to buy Australian and hopefully leave our children a heritage of at least some aspects of self sufficiency.

Our farmers, manufacturers and retailers certainly need to be smarter and embrace anything (technology, production techniques, automation etc., etc) that will reduce prices and help to compete against overseas competitors who usually enjoy MUCH lower labour and production costs and possibly government subsidies.

Australia is a significant world producer of many agricultural products, including wheat, wool and beef. Major commercial crops include broadacre grains, oilseeds and legumes to more intensive crops such as rice, sugar, cotton, grapes, bananas, and potatoes. Major livestock products include beef, wool and dairy products, and sheep, pig and poultry meats. In 2010-11 total farm production was $60 billion and exports were around $45 billion.

Relative to its size in the Australian economy, agriculture provides a disproportionately large share of Australia’s exports: 21 per cent of merchandise exports compared to 3 per cent of GDP.

Agriculture is one of the largest employers in Australia, providing over 350,000 jobs in 2010-11. Agriculture also represents a significant input into many other industries, particularly the food processing industry, which had a turnover of $65 billion and a value added of $24 billion.

It is generally acknowledged that Australia has a strong comparative advantage in the production of agricultural products. This is a result of our size, geography, use of tech-nology and workforce skills.

Consequently, agriculture is one of the most productive and internationally competitive sectors of the Australian economy. Productivity is expected to increase quite considerably over the next few years.

In spite of the difficulties that farmers face, the future of Australian farming is bright. Demand is being stimulated by the growing world population and its food requirements, the growth in the Asian economies and the dismantling of restrictive world trade barriers. Australia is geographically, technologically and agriculturally well placed to capture these opportunities.

http://www.aust-immig-book.com.au/business/overview-australian-agriculture

Gerry, I also think we are not doing enough to keep our farmers on the land.  Their children can see no future for themselves and don't want to take over the family farm and it's so sad to think that we will have no farms in the future and everything will come from overseas &/or overseas companies will own all our farmland.

It's time we supported the farmers but more importantly as well, is to stop the selling off of our farms to overseas interests.  Australia should keep our land for Australians and not allow it to be sold to other countries.

If someone is paying their mortgage, is up to date, then the banks should be stopped from taking it over.  My heart goes out to farmers having this done to them and it should be illegal for the banks to be allowed to do this.

Incredible, shocking, disgraceful and disgusting! I don‘t trust the major banks. What about the Commonwealth Bank ripping off investors.

I posted this the other day --I called it

"Get back to me" 

I had very little interest shown at all

This is a disgrace on the Banks --they are just bloody bullys and the Government are selling out to the Chinese !   As well as the CSG that may well ruin the Artisian Basin

"WITH construction of her massive Roy Hill iron ore mine past the halfway mark, Gina Rinehart has turned her attention towards another highly lucrative commodity: milk.

MS Rinehart's Hope Dairies is looking to spend around $500 million on 5,000 hectares of Queensland farmland to create what's tipped to be one of the country's biggest dairy farms.

The plan is to produce baby formula and UHT milk to meet rising demand for dairy products in China.

Once up and running, the farm is expected to produce an estimated 30,000 tonnes of infant formula a year, all of it for Chinese consumption.

"Gina Rinehart has had a lifelong association with the agriculture industry and she has teamed up with a great deal of expertise in Queensland to build another export industry with huge potential for Australia," a spokesman for Ms Rinehart said.

Ms Rinehart, who is Australia's richest person with an estimated $US15.5 billion ($A16.77 billion) fortune, is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Queensland government and the project's Chinese partners in Brisbane this weekend."

Oz

So you want  to spend taxpayers money on Gina?