David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've spoken before in this House about the crisis facing Australian dairy farmers. I met with representatives from Farmer Power, a dairy producers group from Victoria; and the South Australian farmer who recently exited the industry, Casey Treloar. My predictions are coming true. There is a massive collapse in producer involvement in the dairy industry. In Cohuna, 14 dairy farmers have announced they're leaving. If you look online, if you want a cheap dairy farm, there are five up for sale now in Cohuna. We need to act now. Changing the milk price index and the dairy code of conduct through the machinery of government is too slow. We need a temporary levy introduced so that we will keep people in the industry, because we're getting a producer collapse, and people won't re-enter the industry once they leave. It is well past five minutes to midnight. We need to act now.