[Intl-tobacco] Australia's tobacco growing industry ends

[robert weissman]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20649726-31037,00.html
The Australian
Australia's tobacco industry ends
By Jane Bunce
26oct06

AUSTRALIA'S tobacco growing industry will end after the last growers
today voted for a federal government buy-out of their licences.

Victorian growers decided today to follow Queensland growers in the
exodus from the industry.

Under a $40.9 million package announced today, the Government will buy
out Queensland growers' licences at a rate of $7 a share, capped at
$150,000 per shareholder.

The Government will also buy Victorian growers' licences but the share
details have not yet been announced.

The industry shutdown follows an unfavourable industry restructure and
several years of negotiations with the Government.

The Nationals Senate Leader Ron Boswell said growers were left reeling
three years ago when multinational companies withdrew contracts without
notice, leaving the Australian Taxation Office with no option but to
withdraw licences.

Liberal MP Warren Entsch said it was clear growers had been financially
disadvantaged by various government policies, and without licences were
unable to carry on.

Senator Boswell said the industry ran into trouble in the late 1990s
when World Trade Organisation changes overturned a policy of 57 per cent
local leaf content in tobacco.

When several large multinationals later took their business overseas,
about 154 licence holders in Queensland and 138 in Victoria were left
with no way to make money, he said.

"There will be no more tobacco grown in Australia - it's all over,"
Senator Boswell said.

"It's been a lucrative farming process for years, probably
third-generation in some parts of Queensland.

"It's the end of the tobacco industry and they wouldn't be overjoyed
with that."

But Senator Boswell said the package meant individual growers could move
forward and look at options that were not available to them while they
were carrying such large debts.