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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release  4th of June 2008

Craig Isherwood, National Secretary
PO Box 376, COBURG, VIC, 3058
Phone: 03 9354 0544 Fax: 03 9354 0166
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Smith tells FAO, “Let them die”

Australia’s official response to the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in global food supply which immediately threatens 850 million people, delivered by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to the UN FAO Summit in Rome today, amounts to saying, “Let them starve.”

The only concrete measure pledged by Smith to address the current, urgent food shortage, is $30 million to the UN World Food Program’s emergency appeal; however, what good is $30 million when there is a global food shortage? Where’s the food that $30 million is supposed to buy?

What was urgently needed from Australia was pledges of actual food, which Australia would be in a position to provide, in abundance, were it not for the free trade and “environmentalist” policies of the Rudd Labor Government, and its predecessor Howard Coalition Government, which have annihilated food production in Australia.

Yet it was precisely these policies which Smith pledged more of, in his FAO speech:

  • Government policies to fix “climate change” (which won’t work, because climate change is natural, not man-made), which will crush producers with taxes for their carbon emissions, take up even more precious agricultural land with tree plantations, and be used to further justify the scam of biofuels, which divert food into fuel;

  • More demands for countries to open up to “free trade”, and destroy their farmers the way free trade has destroyed our farmers. Smith urged them to conclude the WTO’s Doha round to “improve global food trade flows”, which will only serve to give the multinational food cartels who control the world’s food trade even more power over the world’s food supply, nations, and independent family farmers.

Australians must demand the Rudd Government act to expand food production and save Australia’s family farmers (by implementing the CEC’s 9-point call—click here), and align Australia with the growing push among nations like Russia, Egypt, Argentina and other nations, which are dumping free trade and expanding their food production, to free all peoples from hunger and want.

To join the CEC’s campaign as a member, click here.
Click here to find out how you can help force the Australian Parliament to act on this crisis.
Click here to receive a free Food Crisis pack with background information on the crisis.


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