The Alliance says promised gains from deregulation of the Dairy industry may be as non-existent as other promised gains in farming from deregulation over the last 13 years.

"The government has always said 'The promised land is always around the corner' when it comes to deregulation but it never is," Alliance Agricultural Spokesperson John Wright said.

"Real problems facing dairy farms are the overvalued exchange rate and interest rates that have been kept high by the Reserve Bank. For the last 13 years our low inflation at all costs policy has really hurt farmers.

"Farmers have also faced the cut back of rural services, the closure of hospitals, increased electricity and telephone prices and the high costs of sending their children through tertiary education.

"These extra costs have been either directly increased by this government or indirectly increased through mismangement, in the case of electricity prices, or inaction in the case of telephones.

"We are the only country in the world to adopt this Spartan, puritanical approach to deregulation in agriculture. We have not gained much as a result," John Wright said.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>