Based on the last forum post on farmers I thought this might be interesting.
The plan - put forward by QLD dairy farmers (surprise) - is for Colesworth to add 10c per litre to the price of milk, and for that to go to "drought stricken farmers."
Curious whether the community here would support the plan.
10c Levy on Milk. For or Against?
Almost Banned on 05/09/2018 - 16:41
Last edited 05/09/2018 - 17:55 by 1 other user
Last edited 05/09/2018 - 17:55 by 1 other user
Poll Options
- 53Support the levy
- 74Oppose the levy
- 18Happy to support farmers but I can do it myself - I don't need a levy.
Comments
less and less people are consuming milk. perhaps they should give that milk to… oh i dunno.. baby cows?
I drought that very much.
And the coconut milk to baby coconuts ?
I believe the PC term for this group is Islanders
Speak for yourself, I for one am certainly drinking a lot more than I used to!
Okay, I'm really questioning the intelligence of the farmers now.
They understand the concept of the supply-and-demand curve right? Milk, perhaps unbeknownst to them, isn't a necessity. You raise prices, people will buy less. That's a hard objective fact of the universe.
I wonder if they're hoping for this to go through, and then to use PR pressure to force Coles/Woolies to keep the final price the same and just absorb the hit to their bottom line.
Genuine question, but how much would a 10c a litre increase influence purchase decisions for milk? Although milk is not a necessity, it is a staple part of a large percentage of the population's diet. I highly doubt an extra $1-2 hit a month will influence people's decision that much for milk.
Regardless, I'm pretty indifferent about the levy.
And it wasn't me who negged you :)
Haha thanks. Honestly, I've no idea what the price sensitivity curve of milk is, but considering how much Woolies and Coles were fighting over even small price differences in milk, I'm leaning towards - people are pretty sensitive to its price.
But it's such a simplistic idea to say "Let's slap a levy on X to pay for Y!" Because it doesn't work like that. It's just as stupid as when the government says: "If we raise taxes on X, then according to current numbers we'll raise Z extra tax revenue." No…. because changing the price of something will change how much people buy it.
I honestly think the end-game will be to just PR-pressure the big supermarkets to absorb the cost of the levy, because they know they can't pass it on and still retain customers. Which is on the one hand, pretty genius, but on the other, underhanded and deceptive (which is not a good look when you've got your hand out for money).
but considering how much Woolies and Coles were fighting over even small price differences in milk,
I think it's just brand loyalty, or, lack thereof.
From my experience anyway, I would stick with ALDI (lactose free) milk because it's the cheapest in the market compared to Coles or Woolworths', but if Aldi were to one day raise it's prices by a mere 10c I would just buy from woolies since they are just right around the corner of the store, and it would beneficial for me since Woolworths gives loyalty points for purchases while Aldi does not.
So basically since 'milk' has really no special features or 'unique selling points' and people think that one brand of milk is no different from the other, you would just buy the cheapest.
But if the price increase is uniform — and everyone increases the prices by the same amount, my milk consumption is not going to change.
@scrimshaw: True - but this seems to be the opposite of your hypothetical - Woolies and Coles are going to raise prices, but ALDI doesn't seem to be part of the idea OP says is being floated… so it'll just turn into people buying more from ALDI instead.
yeap, misread. I thought the price increase was uniform, turns out it's just Colesworth duopoly doing their business.
If the farmers do need a cash injection I'd rather do it directly rather than let supermarkets raise prices and keep the prices up there using charity as a distraction / justification. like what Inherantchoice said below
Cash grab. I am all for charity and fundraising but they shouldn't try to enforce compulsory charity by getting government or big companies to impose a levy on their behalf.
That's a lot more like extortion than charity.
Charity and generosity is something freely given. Not taken without choice.
If it was just temporary though that wouldn't be so bad.
That's exactly what all taxes do.
I hate how they take that money, put it into a big pool and jump out and say "Coles cares about Australian's, thats why we pledged xxxxx$ to farmers" bla bla using our money!
By that logic 'though all of it is "our money"
The 10c put forward. Otherwise it'll be called Givetofarmers not Wesfarmers.
I am 100% against the levy.
The drought is not the problem of consumers, droughts are hardly foreign to Farmers. They are supposed to plan ahead and perpare for such occurences. The Federal Government also gives them interest free loans. They should not be demanding more money from the public.
Low milk prices are not the problem of consumers.
Agreed. I am not across the economics of farming but surely there have been many good years too.
Reminds me of the flood tax a few years back. It is one thing for the government to re-direct its funds to somewhere in a time of need but another thing to increase or add a new tax on everyone else.
It's going to be like the fire levy. It was introduced during a period of frequent bushfires.
It was years after before it was removed after much scrutiny.
Whoever feels so compelled to be a hero, join a charity
It comes from the same state that gave us the flood levy.
Queenslanders seem to like sucking on the teat of taxpayer largesse."Queenslanders seem to like sucking on the teat of taxpayer largesse."
Stop milking the puns.
Someone's in a bad mooood.
I dairyou to use another pun
The only long term answer is supply and demand. If farmers cannot supply the milk and make a profit to stay in business then will will cease supply. Less supply means prices will rise and eventually balance between supply and demand will dictate the final price.
Why don't the farmers just stop selling their milk so cheaply to supermarkets and sell it with massive margins to China as baby formula?
I hate it when big corporate gets involved in charity. They make so much money yet they appeal to small time consumers for more and contribute squat themselves. Its a bit like Ronald Mcdonald house. Now they've started saying crap like, "would you like to roundup your order to contribute to our chairty" … No I would not like to contribute to your charity until I see you throw a big chunk of your $400 million profit for 1 year towards it and set an example. Same with woolies and coles, lets charge everyone 10c on milk to help drought striken farmers, but lets sit on our tidy combined profit of $1.1 billion in the last year. I dont donate to these causes on pricipal, and I will stop consuming milk purely for the purposes of not helping farmers because coles and woolies tried to make me do it without setting an example first. That is $1.1 billion profit which is going to go straight to share holders or reinvestment in other profit making ventures. Screw them and their causes. Sorry to the farmers for being aligned with this, but Id rather throw $100 straight at a drought stricken farmer than 10c on a litre of milk via woolies.
throw $100 straight at a drought stricken farmer
You mean, like at a strip club?
Edit: "I'm gonna make it rain, farmer!"
I'm just sick of all this nickle and diming like return and scam, pay for plastic bags and whatever else. On top of that grocery prices in general seem to be going up, prices aren't as low as they used to be and specials aren't as great. How about Colesworth take some of their massive profits and donate it to the farmers, not impose another tax on us when we are already getting ripped off and filling their coffers.
I saw a post on facebook with someone stating that they should put a tag around the lid of the milk to give people a choice. Either scan the tag to add 10c which will go to the farmers or take the tag off and pay normal price. I would happily pay but I'd like to know the money is going to the farmers and not in their pockets.
No problem for me as long as no other bastard gets their sticky fingers on it along the way.. ie: supermarket, government, middle man fee, etc..
100% to the farmer… no exception.
Considering my past post it is pretty obvious im against it
In good years I don't see private farm businesses giving a 10c rebate to consumers, so why should we provide a 10c levy to them when times get a little tough?
Remember the fuel levy. Fuel prices went down and the levy stayed. Conditions change but Levy's stay forever.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
A $0.02 levy on fuel may well have saved the vehicle industry, but the parties the farmers tend to vote for decided to ignore all the flow on economic effects and the ramifications regarding national security and remove all support.
I have some sympathy for small family farmers, but this levy will mainly go to fattening the profits of Colesworth, re-badged tobacco firms [ e.g. Amatil] and parmalat.
If the rural folk whose 5% of the vote gets them 22 representative including deplorables such as Littleproud and Christianson want Austraslia to support them, they should support Australia, and stop using our Federal parliament as a creche for the cognitively challenged…Neither for or against a levy - we should just be charged exactly what is required to keep the industry profitable and viable in the first place. If the supermarkets weren’t applying so much pressure to the dairy farmers we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
its up to the government of the day to take these decisions and also dictate how the $ is spent, unfortunately our governments are not up to the challenge so it gets left to colesworths to game the system for marketing purposes
from what ive read about milk, the supermarkets make a decent profit, the milk processors make a decent profit, but they are the ones not paying a decent rate to the farmers, so even when there isn't a drought, they don't make much money. They need to make a decent money in the good years, to make up for the occasional bad year where they need to spend a lot of money on feed and water to keep their cows going. I believe there should be a minimum price set for buying milk from farmers, rather than some kind of "levy" when droughts happen.
for the coles and woolies and aldi home branded 2 and 1 litre bottles of FRESH MILK raise the price by 10c-15c p/b and lets also see their labels change by adding "10 or 15c FOR OUR FARMERS"
come on you supermarkets get a move on,you are all making millions for your PLASTIC BAGS grab return some of it to the people who are keeping you in businessIf the 10 cents per litre goes directly to the farmers then I'm all for it. The quicker this happens the better.
I've switched to soy anyway. Better for mitigating future droughts!
I've switched to Almond/Coconut milk. However my family still buys milk, and we don't trust the supermarkets to treat suppliers/farmers fairly on any products, especially milk. We switched from the budget ~$1/ltr milk to the branded $2-3/ltr milk years ago, in support for producers, but in truth it's very hard to know whether much of that helps at all, or if it may be just giving bigger margins to the distributors/supermarkets.
I don't know that a levy is the best direction, but with the aim of informing consumer choice, there should be a FairTrade (fairtrade.com.au) style labelling for milk, to ensure buyers know they are making better choices, and that the farmer isn't being driven to the wall so we can save a few cents.
coles already raised 10c a month or 2 ago.
was 90c/l uht
now $1/l uht
devondale drops to $1.3/l