STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (13:30): A week before last, in response to a message I received from a potato grower in my home state of Tasmania, I convened a meeting of growers who were concerned about the treatment that they were receiving from American based company Simplot in the negotiations for the price for the coming season. Last season, Simplot sent their American toecutters out to try to bully the farmers into accepting a cut in their price, and the farmers managed to negotiate a price that didn't change, which was effectively a price cut.

This year, the same toecutters are there, and they're trying to bully the farmers into accepting a 2.5 per cent price cut. The behaviour is quite unacceptable. What they're trying to do is to go around the bargaining group that's been approved by the ACCC to support growers in their negotiations with Simplot, and pick off the farmers one by one.

But what really disturbed me, Acting Deputy President Polley—being a Tasmanian, you would understand this—was that there were some farmers who were too frightened to come and meet with me, one of their elected representatives, for fear of retribution from Simplot. That behaviour by Simplot is simply a disgrace. I have spoken to Woolworths about it, I intend to talk to McDonald's about it, and I intend to talk to Coles about it, because these are the companies that are benefiting and taking the product from Simplot.

Farmers are expected—through the systems that Coles, Woolworths and McDonald's have in place—to comply with all these social and environmental standards, and it's only reasonable that companies like Simplot do exactly the same thing. We will not let this go.