Thank you very much.
In Australia we are very concerned about the failure of the Doha Round, but from my perspective...and bear in mind I am not in the government, but I am chairing a select committee. I was in the previous government, but I am well connected in the present government. Anyway, Mr. Chairman, the committee that I chair has never had a dissenting report, because we are not in the business of playing politics with people's livelihoods.
Doha has very many complexions, and you would have to say that you would go into it with a conservative outlook on the outcome. When you have players like China in the market, which has a non-market currency, it now has the capacity with sovereign risings to go into the market and buy other people's sovereignty, which is an issue for us in Australia. They're wanting to buy into Rio Tinto for the sovereign funding, much the same way as we have an approach in Australia today from the United Emirates to buy, in a big way with a sovereign fund, into some of our agricultural land.
Now, we are of the view that the global food task has to be modelled by the planet, because you can't eat dividends. There are some complexities, and there are certainly many distortions in the market for a number of reasons, and Australia is sometimes accused of distorting the market through its acquisitions via security barriers for entry. Your beef would be one, with the BSE barrier that we've put up. Australia is clean, green, and free of foot and mouth, BSE, and most major diseases.
We have an issue at the present time, for instance, with bananas. Our banana industry is free of disease. The Philippines are putting pressure on to bring bananas in. New Zealand is putting pressure on to bring apples in. We do not have fireblight disease. So these are the sorts of issues that are very much high in the minds of the Australian electorate, the Australian people, because we are essentially clean, green, and free.
We are almost first cousins with Canada, but we are, shall I say, not all that optimistic about Doha because of the major distortions in the market. A free market issue...you're from Quebec, you have a confined market situation with poultry, pork and dairy. That's a decision for your government and your people. We have an open market. We have serious problems at the present time with the carbon trading principles of the future. I couldn't get today an answer out of your ministry on whether agriculture is going to be in or out of the carbon system. We can't get an answer from our government, and the opposition...we're not too sure what to do either. But I can tell you that at $17 a tonne, every irrigated dairy farmer in Australia is insolvent; at $40 a tonne, 35% of the production costs of beef is the tax. These are pretty serious issues.
I'd love to have half a day here to have a yarn with you all. I could give you my pure and full thoughts, but I don't have the time today.