Loading Advice – Monday, 3rd August 2020
Invicta – 23 661
Kalamia – 8 442
Pioneer – 564
Inkerman – 10 241
Total – 42 908
Kalamia Cane Growers & Kalagro
Enhancing the productivity and profitability of growers
The latest news from Kalamia Cane Growers and Kalagro for Members Only.
Loading Advice – Monday, 3rd August 2020
Invicta – 23 661
Kalamia – 8 442
Pioneer – 564
Inkerman – 10 241
Total – 42 908
SENATE RURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT REFERENCES COMMITTEE ENQUIRY
Representatives from BDCG were given the opportunity to address the senate committee for enquiry into “Identification of leading practices in ensuring evidence based regulation of farm practices that impact water quality outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef” in Brisbane on Monday of this week in support of submission that was lodged in November 2019.
BDCG highlighted a number of issues:
• that members take their environmental stewardship responsibilities very seriously including the health of the GBR
• growers consider themselves to be the caretakers of the land
• due to high input costs, reducing margins, lower prices etc. farmers can ill afford to unnecessarily apply fertiliser and chemicals beyond crop requirements
• financial cost to agriculture to meet state government introduced regulations
• integrity and reliability of the reef science on which legislation and funding decisions are made on
• damming findings from recent CCC review of 3 Qld universities looking at “reducing the risk of research fraud”
• group of international scientists unable to obtain consistent results from repeated experiments of 8 JCU studies confirming that a “replication crisis” exists
• organisation members being fully supportive of an independent authority as suggested by Dr Ridd to “check the science” on which government policy and funding decisions are made and
• calling upon the Federal Government to set aside a nominal amount of funding for this purpose.
Les Elphinstone
Manager KCGO
LNP ANNOUNCE IRRIGATION WATER PRICING POLICY
Leader of the Opposition, Deb Frecklington, together with Member for Burdekin, Dale Last MP were in the Burdekin on Monday 27th July to jointly announce LNP’s water pricing policy. As a representative of the Burdekin’s key industry and given announcement will have a direct impact on our members, KCGO was invited to attend with your Chairman, Robert Malaponte representing our organisation.
Media release and Channel 7 news coverage of event is below.
https://www.facebook.com/7NEWSCairns/videos/1538345379671189/
LNP to slash water prices for Queensland farmers
Monday, July 27, 2020
Water prices paid by farmers will be slashed by almost 20% a year from 1 July 2021 in a major job-boosting election commitment by LNP Leader Deb Frecklington.
Ms Frecklington made the announcement in the Burdekin today as part of her economic plan to stimulate the economy and drag Queensland out of recession.
“A major part of the LNP’s plan to supercharge the regions and unleash industry is through new dams and water infrastructure,” Ms Frecklington said.
“Today we complement our bold dam building plan by slashing water costs for farmers.
“Cheaper water means more secure regional jobs and a near 20% reduction in water costs is a major job-creator for regional Queensland.
“I want Queensland to be Australia’s food bowl and cheaper water costs will be a
catalyst for that.”
Ms Frecklington said the LNP will implement recommendations from the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) to reduce water costs by transitioning SunWater to a regulated asset-based (RAB) approach for financing asset renewals.
The RAB approach recovers costs from customers as incurred yearly rather than attempting to estimate the replacement cost of an asset at the end of its life.
By adopting the QCA’s recommendation to modernise the way Sunwater calculates its asset renewal allowances, as has been done in other states, Sunwater will be more efficient and adopt new technologies.
INTERESTED IN HAVING INPUT INTO THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE BURDEKIN SHIRE?
Burdekin Shire Council has formalised an Economic Advisory Group to enable business and industry to effectively engage and collaborate with Council on economic development matters which are relevant to the local government area. Expressions of interest are now open to persons interested in being a member of the Economic Advisory Group. Further information is available in the following documents.
Les Elphinstone
Manager KCGO