It is a cruel irony that this is less than a week after Labor-Green Minister for Primary Industries Bryan Green told parliament that he was pleased that farmers are being supported by processing companies and that he hoped that the proper relationship between McCain Foods and growers collectively will continue to ensure farmers to get proper returns; it demonstrates that the Labor-Green Government is out of touch and has dropped the ball.

Apart from hollow words and expensive reports, what really has the Labor-Green Government done since McCain's Smithton vegetable processing arm, fled the state to New Zealand back in 2009?

We know there have been reports containing valuable information written at a cost to the taxpayer, suggesting work is needed in areas such as ongoing research, development and extension and lowering the cost of production -but little or no action from Government has eventuated.

The Liberals believe agriculture is one of our key pillars of our economy and we will pick up the ball dropped by the Labor-Green Government and implement our Roadmap to Recovery & Growth - AgriVision 2050. We will invest in areas that will give our farmers a fair go for example our Research and Development Collaboration fund that will maximise key areas in agriculture such as - new crop enterprises, improved productivity and yields, increased competitiveness through reduced costs of production and encouraging greater collaboration between producers to improve economies of scale.