So long as this market only rewards suppliers on a one hour basis (very attractive to solar panels that don’t operate during the night) then this volatility will only increase.  

A much longer period is required, preferably more than 24 hours.

Just because such a major change to the market won’t be easy is no reason to dismiss it.  Apart from leading to lower prices it will help us all to understand better the true cost of power by which I mean “reliable power”.  

This also won’t be easy with the Greens already misleading us by labeling solar and wind as reliable.  Be warned.

SOME good and services have doubled in price over the past two years. Packaging weights and measures reduction is deceptive. Food inflation is pushing 12 per cent and there has been a rapid price rise to many services, especially health, insurance, rents, fuel, energy, motor vehicle costs, home maintenance, education, aged care and more. When goods and services double, the GST take doubles. Low income pensioners and families have had their purchasing power reduced.

The introduction of the GST came with a promise; the ACCC would monitor prices and jump on profiteering and price gauging. That has not been strictly enforced. The Reserve Bank’s preferrred 2 per cent inflation is much higher. It seems the present index is no longer appropriate.

AUSTRALIA has provided aid to Papua New Guinea since its independence in 1975. PNG is currently Australia’s second largest aid recipient behind Indonesia with planned expenditure of an estimated $572.2 million in total Official Development Assistance in 2018-19. We are PNG’s largest aid donor, and in 2015, Australian aid flows were estimated to represent around 7 per cent of PNG’s total official expenditure.

Exactly how is the PNG government spending Australian taxpayers over generous handouts? The government has just purchased 40 luxury Maserati sedans to ferry APEC leaders around Port Moresby next month. Meanwhile the country struggles to pay teachers, nurses, deal with a worsening polio and TB outbreak and now an earthquake. The Maserati Quattroporte cars, cost between $210,000 and $345,000 each, were delivered to Port Moresby this week from Italy, on two privately chartered cargo planes. The vehicles equipped with V6 Ferrari engines will struggle to reach their top speed of 240km/h on Port Moresby’s often potholed roads, which have a maximum 80km/h speed limit.

Meanwhile closer to home hardworking farmers are struggling through drought, medical and scientific research has been set back decades through not having a Science and Medical Research Future Fund and Aboriginal Australians experience poorer health than other Australians, often dying at much younger ages.

So perhaps rather than giving money directly to other countries we should be offering them goods and services and improving the lives of Australia’s first.

The closure of the Devonport Abattoirs is the last nail in the coffin for the ovine meat industry as well as the pig industry. 

Tasmania produces some of the world’s best lambs and mutton, yet has only one small plant exporting to the Arabian states, not America, Asia etc.

About 25 years ago we had five export plants. It has been three years since Tasmania’s main sheep and lamb export plant closed. A plant that was capable of processing 10,000 sheeps and lambs per week. Now that processing is transported to Victoria on a 50 hour trip.

The effect of this is that Tasmanian producers have less competition for their product and can’t get rid of their lambs at the most opportune time, taking approximately 15 per cent less than the mainland producers. 

The economic loss to the state is huge. The Australian taxpayers contribute is something like $4.5 million annually per freight (subsidy).

The loss of jobs representing approximately $12 million annually, the economic multiple must be something like $70 million annually for the community.

The loss to our primary producers is in excess of $5 million for weight loss alone plus a downgrade of quality and the loss of Brand Tasmania identity; a policy that this state government gave lip service to.

Having had a trade mission to Asia at a cost of $200,000 there was no Tasmanian export lamb and mutton offered because we have no plant here with the credited licences necessary.

Yet, we have the product. A 15 per cent in difference in prices represents in excess of $13 million annually to the producers. Why spend $400 million on irrigation without furthering downstream processing? We need to build a premium market on Tasmania’s clean and green image to obtain a premium price.

In the event of a long drought, the state would be at risk shipping weak livestock; an image that must not be associated with in Tasmania. 

The state government has known of this crisis for several years.

The overall effect is that the primary producer’s returns are less than they should be, which indirectly effects their capital value of their properties, which long term benefits the government.

The Agriculture Minister and the previous minister should take a long hard look at themselves and get familiar with the farming industry.  We don’t need another King Island plant closure, where it was allowed to be demolished, as was the Triabunna Woodchip Plant and then paid $5 million annually for 10 years to freight the product North. If necessary, compulsory acquisition should be considered.

The time for action is now; courage is a politician’s necessity.