Grain Industry

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:39): A further supplementary: does the minister agree with the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure's public statement this morning that some farmers can be 'rogue idiots'?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:39): I think that is a bit of a stretch because, as you know, the Hon. John Dawkins and I are the only two in this chamber who have ever been farmers and so you are sort of putting me in that category. I think the challenge sometimes is that if you have a catastrophic day and a cool change blows through one side of a district could be cool enough to harvest, with a bit of moisture in the air because the sea breeze has come in, but on the other side of the district it is still 40°. There are times when people are harvesting where someone is harvesting and another one is not. I'm not going to be drawn into whether I agree with the Minister for Transport around various farmers. It needs to be monitored in a sensible way.