Unless the grocer (Woolies, Coles, Aldi, IGA/Metcash, et al) deal exclusively with the farm gate, they are dealing with middle men (often co-ops).
The middle man sets the price and deposits the money.
Branded milk is about 2X generic house branded, but many reports have reinforced it comes from the same cows and the prices the dairy farmer gets are what they get.
Bottom line is without some evidence that Norco, Parmalat, etc, etc, etc are paying the dairy farmers the incremental difference for product, this is nothing but PR and hand wringing. The dividends the co-op shareholders receive from co-op profit is not part of this equation.
If a government did not go with the lowest bidder it would make a mockery of the tender process as well as elicit significant criticism from the opposition and especially from libertarian mindsets. That is underscored by reality. Jobs? regardless of who offers them as a deal maker, domestic or foreign, it is usually puffery not substance. The decision makers don’t want to know so long as they have nice headlines
I am not sure what you are on about. The thread veered into the world of ‘buy local’ while the Qld government apparently awarded a contract to Lactalis Australia and Lion Dairy. Seems the references such as ‘gives a milk tender to a Chinese and French owned company’ is a tad over the top dog whistling considering that both are foreign owned local companies that employ workers, buy supplies, et al, and support the local economy. Their brands are very prominent across the country.
I cannot answer that beyond Lactalis statement ’ Lactalis Australia sourced milk from over 680 farms across Australia’.
Lion - ‘Every year we purchase around one billion litres of milk from over 550 Australian dairy farmers, and crush approx. 75,000 tonnes of fruit from orchards across the country.’
Pauls milk (the business awarded the government contract), sources it milk from local dairy farmers. Its processing plant is currently located in South Brisbane.
Also, it appears that Maleny Milk might not be halal certified, which may pose problems within the hospital system. I wonder if the tender asked for what certifications were in place to ensure that the milk products could meet the broader community, rather than excluding some Australians?
No offence, but history shows the ‘locals’ will sell to a multinational in a heartbeat when the price is right. There are no sure bets either way, although our government seems to err pretty badly by giving away funds or contracts with nothing required in return.
The FIRB is supposed to oversight these sales and determine if they are in Australia’s interest, if not they can refuse the sale and the buyer/seller can appeal to the Minister if they feel they have been poorly dealt with. I have seen very few submissions to the FIRB refused on any grounds and nearly all sales go ahead. It is the short term influx of money they see and I feel they disregard the long term poor effects of the sales.
I once worked with a guy who filed all the equipment tyre details under B for Beaurepaires, instead of T tyres or L for loaders or …
To each their own, but I wonder how in the future we might find this particular item. Or collect with it similar issues from other health organisations across the nation. Perhaps it is just not Qld Health we should be looking at. Although being one of the last great bastions of public health left in the nation it is easy to see how it might get more attention than the many private run services. Transparency is a good thing. Just one part of what appears to be serious misconduct going back in this report to when the LNP was last leading Qld. Their successors seem not to have been any wiser after the event.
At least in this example there are the legal systems and investigative CCC able to pursue such matters. Unlike our Federal institutions who continually decline to proceed in the same direction.
