Patients before producers – state must buy best value milk product for sick

The Australian Institute for Progress has criticised the state government and the opposition over “Dairygate”.

Executive Director Graham Young said that the state government had made the right decision in choosing the best offer to provide the milk, but needs to scrap its “buy local” scheme which in other circumstances could have led to it making the wrong decision.

“Foreign ownership of the dairy companies is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Queensland’s hospitals are underperforming, and the last thing they need is an increase in their costs as a result of a misguided “buy local” campaign.

“State Government hospitals underperform compared to Australian best practice, but in this case they are on the right track.

“Preferring local companies and giving them preference at the same time as paying them more, is poor policy, but unfortunately supported in principle by government and opposition. In this case the policy hasn’t interfered with the right decision, but in other cases it might.”

Mr Young said that the only thing that was “foreign” about Paul’s and Dairy Farmers is their ownership.

“The companies might be owned by Italians and Chinese respectively but the milk they are selling isn’t sourced from Lombardy or Mongolia, but from Beaudesert and the Lockyer Valley and other places in south-east Queensland.

“Their employees aren’t fly-in, fly-out – they live here. They spend their incomes here, their kids go to local schools, they shop locally and they pay taxes locally.

“Why should the suppliers and employees suffer because the source of their capital and ultimate management is overseas?

“And we all know the product is good because we have all grown-up drinking it.”

Mr Young said that a state that was ramping its debt up to historically unique levels could not be a snob when it comes to overseas capital.

“Australians don’t save enough for their own needs so we source others’ savings either as loans or investments.

“We also shouldn’t cripple our own industries and services by ramping up their costs by forcing them to buy local product. That way leads to ever escalating costs and a decrease in living standards and the ability of locals to compete on the world stage.

“’Buy local’ policy also leads to the sort of crony capitalism where unsuccessful producers, rather than smartening-up their act and working out how to compete, run to the nearest politician and lobby them for protection.

“That produces a system of insiders and outsiders with nanny state interference, gross unfairness and no transparency.

“The government and opposition must do better.”

For further information contact Graham Young on 0411 104 801