THE AUSTRALIAN WHEAT DEAL

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25305, 3 October 1947, Page 8

THE AUSTRALIAN WHEAT DEAL

COMMENT BY SYDNEY NEWSPAPER’ ". COMMONWEALTH TAXPAYERS FIND £7,600,000 “One item in Mr Chifley’s Budget 'which should not be allowed to pass without protest is the appropriation of £2,000,000 to finance the Commonwealth Government’s contract to supply New Zealand with wheat,” said a leading article in the “Sydney Morning Herald” of September 27. “Australian taxpayers may well ask why they should be obliged to subsidise the New Zealand consumer to the tune, in all, of about £7,000,000. Last year Mr Scully was evasive to the point of deception over the very existence of the agreement. It was only as information leaked out in New Zealand that the facts were gradually •wrung from embarrassed Commonwealth Ministers. The more light that is shed on the transaction the less defensible it appears. “Under this amazing agreement the Commonwealth is committed to supply 4,500,000 bushels of wheat to New Zealand each yeaf at 5s 9d h bushel, for a period of four years. The export price is now 17s a bushel Australian ports, so that New Zealand gains the difference at the expense of the Australian public. No such unprecedented bargain has been offered to Great Britain. When Mr Scully played Santa Claus to New Zealand, Britain was paying 9s 6d a bushel at ports for our wheat, and last year she paid 14s 6d. His subsequent attempt to take shelter behind the Australian Wheat Board by claiming that it had been consulted throughout the negotiations collapsed ignominiously when the former general manager retorted that although the chairman and himself had been informed of the proposal in the very early stages, the board as such had never been consulted. “Why the Government should have negotiated such a contract with complete disregard for the grower, the taxpayer, and the Wheat Board, and why New Zealand should have been singled out for such exceptional indulgence, is a mystery to be explained only by reference to politics. No csse has oeen put forward on any other ground which will stand examination for a moment. Mr Pollard, saddled with the unenviable task of justifying the deal, could do no better than to suggest that if the world price de- , clined to 3s 9d the New Zealand Government would have to make up the difference. But the Dominion has n Labour Government, and last year that Government was facing an election. Fellow-feeling between Labour Governments is wondrous strong, and it is easy to be generous with taxpayers’ money.”