Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I absolutely categorically reject the suggestion that there is a watering down of the treatment of processors and the relationship between farmers and processors with the code. I'm happy to go through, for the senator, the process our government has undertaken since the ACCC report recommended that we have a mandatory dairy code.

In April 2018, on the back of Murray Goulburn and Fonterra clawbacks and step-downs, the ACCC released a recommendation that we implement a mandatory dairy code, which we agreed to do. In October 2018, we announced the first round of consultation with industry, and this was the very first opportunity for a dairy industry that is quite fractured to come together around what measures they could agree on that could be part of a mandatory code. In January 2019, a set of draft clauses for the code was released, and a second round of consultation was commenced.