Part 1: Chairman's Review

Back to Contents | Next Section | Previous Section

Patrick Musgrave

I am pleased to be able to report on the continuing operations of the Dairy Adjustment
Authority. The work of the Authority over the past twelve months has been concentrated on finalising the Dairy Structural Adjustment Program, and implementing the Supplementary Dairy Assistance program, which was announced by Minister Truss on 21 May 2001.

I am very pleased to report that the Authority has achieved its objective of granting payment rights under the Dairy Structural Adjustment Program to the value of $1.63 billion to 29,735 eligible dairy producers.

Towards the end of last financial year, activities in relation to the Dairy Structural Adjustment Program were winding down. However, in May 2001, the Supplementary Dairy Assistance program was announced and the Authority reassembled resources to administer the new legislation. The Supplementary Dairy Assistance program targets those dairy producers who were the most severely affected by price movements following deregulation, and those whose eligibility for Dairy Structural Adjustment
Program payments was unintentionally limited by that Scheme’s eligibility criteria.
There are two major components of the Supplementary Dairy Assistance program:

• basic and additional market milk payments;
  and
• discretionary payments.

The market milk payments comprise an additional payment to those farmers who
were primarily reliant on market milk. At 30 June 2002, 7,645 eligible dairy
producers had been granted payment rights to the value of $101 million.

Progress on discretionary payments has been steadier. The Authority reviewed its files to identify cases that might be eligible for discretionary payments, responded to many
requests for information and sought further information from several hundred dairy farmers. The members of the Dairy Adjustment Authority Board then considered each case and exercised the discretion of the Authority when making decisions. The cases have been diverse and complex and have required time to analyse against legislative requirements. Most discretionary payments cases have been completed and payments to eligible dairy producers commenced in November 2001. At 30 June 2002, 393 eligible dairy producers had been granted discretionary payments rights to the value of more than $10 million.

The Dairy Adjustment Authority will continue to assess claims for discretionary payments
and deal with requests for reconsideration and appeals to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Following this period, the Authority will be in the completion phase, with activity primarily
related to quarterly payments under the programs. Along with the phase-down of
activities come significant decreases in the costs of operation.

During 2002-03 a review of the adequacy of collections of dairy adjustment levy to fund the programs will be undertaken by the Authority. Of course, the Dairy Adjustment Authority in some much reduced form will continue until the last of the Dairy Structural Adjustment Program and Supplementary Dairy Assistance payments are made in 2008.

The Authority would not have made such significant progress and met Government
timeframes through this challenging exercise without the dedication and hard work of the
management and staff of the Authority. In addition, the Australian Dairy Corporation
readily provided resources and facilities to enable the Authority to perform its legislative
functions. I would like to express the appreciation of the Board and management of
the Authority to the Australian Dairy Corporation for its continued support.

Patrick Musgrave
Chair

Back to top | Back to Contents | Next Section | Previous Section

© Commonwealth of Australia 2002
This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests for further authorisation should be directed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Intellectual Property Branch, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, GPO Box 2154, Canberra ACT 2601 or at http://www.dcita.gov.au/cca.