An ACCC report released on Thursday only further highlights the case for a broader inquiry into prices farmers have to pay to access ports, a peak graingrowing body said on Friday.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Deputy Chair Mick Keogh said:
“The bulk grain export industry has undergone some significant changes over the last five years, so we need to consider whether the current regulation of exporter access to port terminals is still fit for purpose.”
Grain Producers Australia chair Andrew Weidemann told Flow an adequate level of regulation needed to be maintained:
"We've never really got to the point where we've had a year on year surplus of grain, a decade on from deregulation we are finally getting to the point where we are testing the system.
"We've seen over the last five or six years, Riordan Grains in Victoria, Semaphore Grains in South Australia, T Ports (on the SA Eyre Peninsula) offering an alternative pathway to market for a lot of farmers - that's the important thing that we've been looking at. While the industry's still developing and still investing in those types of assets and opportunities, we still need to keep a level of regulation, that's what exporters are saying, on the current holders of major exporting infrastructure out of Australia."
Hear the full interview with Grain Producers Australia's Andrew Weidemann on the Flow podcast below:
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