CONFIDENCE in the Federal Government is waning among Australian producers, with a new national survey revealing almost three quarters of farmers believe Labor's policies are harming the industry.
The second National Farmer Priorities Survey, conducted by National Farmers' Federation (NFF) in partnership with Seftons, shows sentiment towards the Government's policy agenda has dropped significantly in the past year.
The results, released earlier this week, indicate 73.3 per cent of farmers agree its policies are harming the industry, up 19 per cent from 2023. Furthermore, it shows 80.1 per cent of producers do not agree the Government has a positive plan to grow the farm sector (up 37.7 per cent from 2023), while 79.8 per cent disagree it listens to farmers (up 38.8 per cent) and 76 per cent disagree it is doing a good job on behalf of farmers.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The survey, of 1026 farmers across the country, also revealed heightened levels of concern across a range of issues compared to last year, up by an average of eight per cent across all metrics. Among the top concerns were biosecurity, the market power of supermarkets and processors, and federal environment laws, with 94 per cent, 93.9 per cent and 92.5 per cent of farmers respectively voicing concerns for these issues. The biggest change over the past year was regarding biosecurity (up 12.7 per cent), the phase-out of live sheep exports (up 12.2 per cent) and market power (up 10.8 per cent).
When it comes to productivity, 77.8 per cent of respondents said increasing costs were having a high impact on their business or region, while 35.1 per cent cited restrictive environment laws as having a high impact and 31.8 per cent said land use competition.
On a positive note, the survey found 89 per cent of farmers agree with the statement "I love what I do" and 78 per cent said their community is a "great place to live", up by 18 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
NFF president, David Jochinke, said the results of the survey are unsurprising, with critical issues like the live sheep export ban, biosecurity tax and water buybacks weighing heavily on farmers.
He said the results around live export were telling, given it was rated as one of the highest area of concern despite only 10 per cent of the responses coming from Western Australia.
"This clearly demonstrates when bad policy infiltrates one sector, it puts every other sector on notice that they could be next," Jochinke said.
"As we look ahead, we now have a refreshed ministry on the hill. We hope the new ministerial team, in Julie Collins and Anthony Chisholm, will re-evaluate the Government's direction and work with farmers to support the sector."
