China officially asks to colonise a part of Western Australia-for money of course

April has been a month of policy disasters for Australian agriculture defining its now bleak future
Delivering a mortal blow to the dairy industry, our disingenuous ALP government, aided and abetted by traitorous so-called primary producer organizations such as the National Farmers Federation has not said boo about the largest ever shipment of Australian dairy cows and heifers shipped to China in the past eight months.



To top off this farmer coup-de-grace, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is acting as gigolo for a Chinese conglomerate offering to buy 15,000 hectares of prime farming country east of Kunnunurra in Western Australia.

The Shanghai Zhongfu group wants to grow its own irrigated sugar cane in the $311m second-stage expansion of the Ord irrigation project.

Another 13 companies and individual farmers are competing against the Chinese after submitting final expressions of interest to the West Australian government to farm all or part of the new area.
Should the Chinese offer be accepted this massive expansion of the sugar industry in Northern Australia will spell disaster for Queensland cane growers.

Zhongfu, trading as Kimberley Agricultural Investments, is also in discussion with the WA, NT and federal governments and traditional owners the Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation to develop a further 15,000 ha of prime black soil downs country on the NT side of the Kimberley border.

A sweetener in Hawkes bid is to build is to build a $100m sugar mill in the Ord region.
Hawkes company also proposes to establish a super, 500,000 head a year abattoir in the east Kimberley to supply the beef export market to China.

This venture could also wipe out a proposal to build a large abattoir in the Cloncurry district of Noerth West Queensland.

This venture will also spell disaster for Australias largest pastoralist, the Australian Agriculture Company which has plans to start building an abattoir at Katherine.
KAI says it needs 30-40,000 ha of sugar crops to support a financially viable sugar mill and biofuel production.

In return for such a large investment the company is demanding all environmental and native title approvals be handed to it on a plate within two years.

Cairnsnews has copies of the WA Governments generic farm purchase contracts which are tailored towards a significant indigenous partnership arrangement for any purchaser in the Kimberley region.
It will be of interest to individual farmers bidding for land if these arrangements are included in any Chinese deal.

WA Farmers Federation president Dale Park said his organization was unlikely to oppose the Chinese bid.

EXODUS OF WORLD-BEST DAIRY BREEDING STOCK TO CHINA

In 2008 nearly 50,000 dairy cattle were exported overseas from Australian producers, but in the first eight months of this financial year 36,450 cows worth a staggering $44m have gone to China.
By the end of June exports will top 55,000 a rather dubious record which is unsustainable for the future of the dairy industry.

The export heifers, mostly from Victoria, are fetching up to $1600 per head, about 30 per cent more than the domestic market can afford.

The milk war between Coles and Woolworths has had a detrimental effect on the industry and coupled with de-regulation it has forced many farmers to the wall.

Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay are the only three countries licensed to export dairy cattle to China.

Source : Here

China’s Economic Colonization Starts Down Under: William Pesek

All in.

That’s essentially the message Treasurer Wayne Swan is sending about Australia’s odds-defying bet on Chinese growth. The government’s latest budget pledges to deliver the quickest improvement in the nation’s finances on record -- without specifics about how that will happen.

The absence of such detail is telling and can be boiled down to one thing: an even bigger gamble on China’s 10 percent growth and its voracious appetite for Australia’s resources. It’s risky to so fully hitch the hopes of 23 million people to a single nation that’s still developing.

Hypocrisy was in the room last month when Australia rejected a Singaporean offer for its stock exchange. Swan called slapping down Singapore Exchange Ltd. (SGX)’s $8.8 billion bid for ASX Ltd. a “no brainer.” The whole shareholders-come-first vibe that pervaded before the global crisis lost its oomph among voters.
The debate distracted attention from a far bigger takeover happening by stealth: China’s designs on all things down under. Down under the ground, that is.

The stock market deal would’ve been just a corporate merger, not exactly an affront to Australia’s national identity. Australia is a massive nation with vast natural resources, while Singapore’s land mass is dwarfed by the Great Barrier Reef. Singapore Exchange’s ownership of ASX wouldn’t be a financial colonization by any stretch of the imagination.

Resource Boom

Of course, if a critical mass of Australians has reservations about something, lawmakers must listen. And listen, they did. Yet arguments for quashing the takeover -- deterring investment into Australia, for example -- were tenuous. Everyone knows Australia’s resource sectors are booming and those who want a piece of it won’t care who runs ASX.

The real colonization is arguably taking place on the ground -- or, more to the point, beneath it -- in Western Australia. China’s voracious appetite for raw materials to fuel its rise is at record levels and set to continue rising. It’s leading to bubbles in the 13th biggest economy.

There’s even a role for Ben Bernanke. Press reports are full of tales of 24-year-old miners with no college degree making more than the Federal Reserve chairman’s annual $199,700 salary. And Bernanke gets less compensation than Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens, which many economists around the globe would see as a kind of monetary justice.

In a world wracked by crisis and uncertainty, Stevens has been a steady presence. Australia was that rare developed economy that avoided recession amid the 2008 global crisis. Banks there weren’t devastated by the toxic debt that undid many of Wall Street’s biggest names.

Two-Speed Economy

Stevens, though, faces a tantalizingly difficult challenge: combating rising wages that could prove inflationary, while not killing growth. The China effect is a key element of this struggle. A wage-price spiral would only exacerbate Australia’s “two-speed economy” problem.

China is feeding a growing disparity between Australia’s resource-rich western states and Queensland and the rest of the country. Does Chinese demand mean Australia has too much of a good thing on its hands? What if China suddenly slowed? With Chinese inflation holding at more than 5 percent in April while lending exceeded analysts’ estimates, overheating risks are rising.

Australia is flirting with “Dutch disease,” whereby financial benefits of a resource boom lead to a hollowing out of other sectors. The worry is that Australia becomes all too happy to be a mining site for China and takes its focus off a more diverse economic future.

17th-Century Model

Certainly, the savvy financial-services and technology professionals busily working in Sydney and Melbourne demonstrate the economic modernity that drives growth. Australia is surely on a tear, sending the local currency toward record highs. Yet too much focus is on the 17th-century model of digging things out of the ground and loading them on ships.

Chinese demand is becoming an addiction, and it will force politicians and voters to adapt. Immigration is a case in point. Australia plans to import about 16,000 workers to plug holes in the labor market. Trade is a two-way street. You can’t expect to ship mountains of coal and iron ore overseas and also limit importing labor and foreign takeovers. It’s not working for Japan and it won’t work for Australia.
Gillard’s Shift

As the 21st century unfolds, the consensus is that it belongs to Asia, particularly China. Australia’s latest budget shows that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is turning further away from the U.S. and Europe toward this region. That makes perfect sense given its economic potential.

What doesn’t is failing to harness the ingenuity of Australians. Their future in an ever-globalizing economy is about ideas, innovation, education and upgraded infrastructure. Australia’s budget punts all these challenges forward. Why make tough decisions when you can double down on China?

We tend to focus on how China’s growing role as benefactor is reshaping, for better or worse, nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Little is said about the consequences of highly- developed nations casting their lot with an economy that could be hit by anything from asset bubbles to social instability.
Talk about a roll of the dice.

Source : Here