I’ve been asked to speak outside Parliament House tomorrow morning, to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence’. What an honour. 
Following are my speech notes:
THERE is nothing more basic to our physical well-being than food, and Australian farmers are amongst the most efficient and responsible food producers in the world. Yet they are increasingly demonised and their businesses right now under extraordinary and unnecessary pressure.
The pressure comes, at one level, from apparently arbitrary decisions made by this Commonwealth government, but the previous Coalition government was no better.
Decisions affecting agriculture increasingly reflect the values of an overweight metropolitan elite who have no empathy for, or understanding of, food production or food producers.
It is fashionable to denigrate the very people who keep our supermarket shelves piled high with affordable milk, meat, fruit and vegetable. And so GetUp! – with members who mostly sit down – dictate ever more impractical but fashionable policies.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.