Isherwood: Nations want food, not free trade bulldust

Instead of selling off the farm, Australia should enter into long-term, government-to-government contracts with nations such as China to provide what they really want—a guaranteed food supply, Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood said today.

“Nations that are serious about food security know free trade is a delusion,” Isherwood said. “Their governments are actively seeking arrangements with other nations to secure food sources.

“By contrast, both of Australia’s ruling parties are hell-bent on destroying food production in Australia through a combination of British free trade and British green fascism. No other country in the world would destroy their principal food bowl the way the ALP is using a Coalition law, the Water Act 2007, to smash food production in the Murray-Darling Basin, and no other country lets two big retailers screw their producers the way the free trade nuts in Canberra let Coles and Woolworths squeeze the life out of Australian family farmers in the name of ‘competition’.

“However,” he continued, “the very same mad devotion to free trade makes the major parties happy to sell off Australian land to foreign investors—free trade and national sovereignty don’t mix. The irony is, the countries that are keen to secure their food supplies are seeking to buy our land, to grow the food that we should be growing.

“It is now getting out of control: 11 per cent of Australian land is currently foreign-owned, twice the area of Victoria,” he said.

Isherwood said the way to protect our national sovereignty, and help our trading partners secure their food needs, was through government-to-government contracts, which would also be key to a global recovery following a Glass-Steagall reorganisation of the bankrupt global financial system.

He explained, “The government should stop all land sales, and instead strike long-term deals with China and the Middle Eastern nations keen for food supplies, which will give Australian farmers a guaranteed market for expanded production.

“In a reorganised financial system based on fixed currency exchange rates, such contracts will underpin currency values; furthermore, a government-owned national bank, like the original Commonwealth Bank, would be able to issue credit against the contracts to develop and expand food production in the Ord River district, the Murray-Darling Basin, and other areas of food potential including the Bradfield Scheme region of Western Queensland.

“This is the way the world can rebuild a functional physical economy, which has been completely devastated by four decades of governments either standing—or being shoved—aside so bankers and speculators could sink their fangs into every sector of the economy for a quick buck.”

Isherwood concluded, “With the global financial system now spiralling through a new phase of its disintegration, this looting has reached its end. The solution to the crisis is obvious; the problem is that the Australian people are mentally locked into the major parties, both of which are destroying us. The first step to solving the crisis is to break with the political interests that are causing it, and join the CEC.”