Media Release

Nothing but an “Orwellian double-think” was how KAP Leader and Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter today described Woolworths having become the AFL’s official white milk sponsor as well as declaring itself to be a “proud supporter of Australian Farmers”.

“The Orwellian double think has arrived - you can convince people that the complete opposite of the truth is actually true.

“The fact that they are trying to promote themselves is a clear manifestation of their own market information.

“It is showing the extreme resentment of the free-market forces which deliver all of the power to the two food giants who hold around 90 percent of the Australian food market.

“For those of us who are fortunate enough in our education to have read George Orwell’s frightening specter of 1984, it has arrived.

“The thought police are out there, they’re managing public opinion, they control the advertising, and through their huge advertising dollar they control editorial policy,” Mr Katter said.

Mr Katter attacked successive Governments’ policy which had all but destroyed the dairy farming industry in Australia.

“Why have 7,000 dairy men been crushed out of the industry?

“Why are we getting much the same prices now as we were getting in the 1980s?

“Why three years after dairy de-regulation had farm suicides reached a level of one every four days?

“Why are our farmers paid less and less when shop prices for consumers are in the upper range of pricing around the world?

“We can’t blame the supermarket giants, they’re there to maximise profits for their shareholders.

“They can probably live with their own conscience touting themselves as the ‘Farmer’s Friend’ when their enormous market power has enabled them to achieve the highest margins in food probably anywhere in the world.

“But when the Government steps aside and leaves the free-market to become an oligopoly, you can blame the low life politicians who tout themselves as representing the people when they actually represent the corporations,” Mr Katter said.