In country circles, WhatsApp groups and emails have been pinging. As Tuesday dawns on the first rally endorsed by the National Farmers’ Federation since 1985, there has been a bit of chat about its merits.
The 1985 rally descended on the Hawke government. It numbered 40,000 to 45,000 people and was duplicated at some state parliaments. In Victoria, according to the journalist Martin Flanagan, 30,000 people protested, holding placards such as “farmer the new poor”, “Agricultural Income Deficiency Syndrome” and, my personal favourite, “wife home working”.
Like Anthony Albanese, Bob Hawke was two years into government – though Labor was already into its second term. The day the farmers marched, Hawke was holding a tax summit. He fronted the angry (but reportedly well disciplined) crowd and was met with jeers and hoots of derision.
Back then, farmers were protesting against high interest rates, capital gains tax and fuel and fertiliser prices. Trade walls were tumbling, Australian businesses were increasingly exposed to competition, Medicare had begun a year earlier, and the Australian dollar had been floated in 1983, Hawke’s first year of government.
In 2024 the NFF has seven bones to pick with Labor. Priority issues include the 2028 phase-out of the live sheep trade, resuscitated water buybacks to meet the Murray-Darling Basin plan, increases in biosecurity charges, changes to superannuation, and community impacts from energy developments including renewable energy. Other items on the list are bogeymen: the federation opposes a call from the Greens, the Australia Institute and, interestingly, Andrew Forest to scrap the diesel fuel rebate, which Labor has already said it won’t do. It also fears the 88-day visa extension, which incentivises backpackers to work in the farm industry, will be scrapped as a result of the review of regional migration settings, and “unnecessary” red tape from scope three emissions reporting.
It is unclear how many people will turn up to Federation Mall but more than 1,000 people had registered to attend as of Friday, and a convoy of trucks is expected.
The NFF president, David Jochinke, told the Weekly Times it was an “unusual step” for the NFF to endorse the rally, which was sparked by a WA mob called Keep the Sheep.
“We just want a return to common sense. We want policies informed by farmers’ lived experience and designed to grow the industry, not diminish it to appease activist agendas,” Jochinke said.
Back in 1985 the NFF president was Ian McLachlan, from a wealthy South Australian farming dynasty, who later went into politics proper as a minister in the Howard government. The Canberra Times journalist Jack Waterford reported it was “no National party rally”. In fact, the Queensland premier and National party fox, Joh Bjelke-Petersen – a man with unfulfilled federal ambitions – was begged not to speak, despite calls from the crowd.
Waterford wrote: “[Bjelke-Petersen] was told bluntly that the NFF would be unspeakably embarrassed: it was not a party political occasion.”
When McLachlan took the stage, he said the rural vote was for sale to the highest bidder, and not mortgaged to the conservative parties.
“All political parties are out of touch with the rural electorate,” McLachlan said.
This year the Liberal and National parties have urged their conservative constituencies to get along and fly the flag. The National party has declared it is standing shoulder to shoulder with farmers. The WA Liberal senator Slade Brockman emailed supporters describing the rally as a “call to arms for Australia’s agricultural industry”.
Brockman asks the country voter to “dig deep and donate to my campaign to Defend Regional Australia” with a link through to the WA Liberal party donation page.
That’s nothing out of the ordinary. Political parties leverage off issues of the day against their opponents and raise money off the back of it. It is about as surprising as a union campaign against the former Morrison government. These are rusted on political constituencies.
But to use Jochinke’s term, what is common sense in agricultural policies?
This rally ostensibly began with Labor’s long-held promise to phase out live export sheep by sea on 1 May 2028, a policy that largely only affects WA producers. It’s a shift that is happening around the world in response to market expectations and a future Coalition government would find it hard to reintroduce live exports, particularly in their teal-leaning seats.
A live export ban was signed off by the UK Conservative government earlier this year. The former Sunak government said it reinforced the country’s position “as a nation of animal lovers and a world leader on animal welfare”. The Morrison government already limited the live sheep export trade in summer months after the Awassi Express disaster in 2017, after the then agriculture minister, David Littleproud, said footage of conditions on the ship left him “shocked and gutted”.
Community impacts of renewable energy developments is another big issue to be raised at the rally. It is absolutely true that rural communities have had their fair share of dumb, speculative behaviour from developers and this is something Guardian Australia has covered extensively.
But will rally leadership tell the crowd that energy sources are changing in the face of global heating, which remains the mother of all risks to farming? And are they really going to tell other farmers what they can and can’t do on their own land, if some of them want to drought-proof their farms with solar or wind?
Jochinke hosts his own wind turbines, so surely a more useful exercise when dealing with developers would be to negotiate cheap renewable power for rural communities.
I understand farmers feel strongly about their industry. Hell, I wrote the book about why you should care about farming. But if I were to take to the streets, let me give you two issues that deserve more attention.
First, farming is choked by some of the most anti-competitive practices in our economy, both upstream (for things such as fertiliser and other inputs) and downstream (by big processors and food retailers). That is affecting farmgate prices every day but that hasn’t made the seven deadly sins.
Second, the pandemic reminded us of supply chain threats to food growing. Fuel and fertiliser are mostly imported and there is no comprehensive risk assessment to agriculture. The work has been done in an excellent parliamentary report which recommends a food system plan and a minister for food. Nary a peep from Albanese’s government and not a mention at the rally.
Farming is a risky business made more complex by global heating. As someone who earns income from farming, “common sense” would be anticipating changing trends in the market and staying ahead of them – as many farmers are doing every day to stay in business.
Instead, I fear that farm leadership will default to an agenda more useful to politicians than farmers.
