Tasmanian farmers get the tweak they needed

Tasmanian farmers today welcomed the Australian Government’s substantial enhancement of the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme, announced today by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

“This is the tweak we needed,” Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association president Wayne Johnston said.

“The principle of freight equalisation has been to remove any freight disadvantage we have with our mainland counterparts, given that we do not have an interstate highway connection.

“It has been anomaly of the system since its inception in 1976 that we have not been able to get freight equalisation on goods trans-shipped through Australian ports from Tasmania but bound for export.

“Now that has been remedied and it should have a marked effect on our competitiveness on overseas markets for the range of Tasmanian produce,” he said.

Mr Johnston said that the government had responded quickly and significantly to lobbying from Tasmanian MPs, coming on top of the Australian Government’s $60 million funding for the second tranche of irrigation schemes.

“We’ve had a good couple of weeks,” Mr Johnston said.
TFGA president Wayne Johnston