On 25/11/2002 1:32 AM, "lbo-talk-digest" <owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com> wrote:
> NB. On the point of subsidies: US agribusiness lobbies have complained about
> statutory monopolies, such the Australian Wheat Board, as being
> market-distorting interventions (at the same time as successive US
> administrations have inflicted far more significant direct subsidies).
> Nevertheless, Australian agriculture is almost completely unsubsidised ---
> the sole exception are the sugar producers in North Queensland, who happened
> to straddle marginal electorates in the early 1990s and were bought off by
> the last (Labor) federal government. These sugar subsidies are often excused
> by reference to the even more generous corporate welfare offered to sugar
> producers in Florida (et al).
The joke amongst die hard Liberals used to be that the National Party was the last refuge of socialism in the Australian parliament, on account of the Wheat Board and at a state level, the Dairy Coops. In a bygone era, Salazar criticised Australia's "communist" coprah purchasing board in New Guinea before the League of Nations...
Thiago Oppermann
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