Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's snowing in Warragul today, which is a very unusual occurrence, but the cows still have to be milked, the houses still have to be kept warm, the reverse cycle air-conditioners are still going and businesses have to run. The cost of power feeds into all of that cost structure for my dairy farmers and agricultural producers. Every business in Warragul incurs the cost burden of increased power prices, which we have seen grow over many years. In fact, as long as we have promoted more renewables, it seems to me, prices have gone up, not down. In a cost structure on a dairy farm particularly, where your cost of production is not only the feed you have to put out but the fertiliser you've got to put in, the way you've got to run your farm, the expertise needed these days—power costs for dairy farmers are crucial to the input. It makes everything dearer for all of us if the price it costs to produce milk is ever-increasing because of increased power prices in this country. Here's to my dairy farmers working in the snow today. They have to milk the cows every day, and they do.