Bargearse ... WA growers are consistently achieving price premiums over the East Coast of around $30/tonne for all grains. That is pure profit over the East Coast growers sales prices and has been the case every year since deregulation.
Prior to deregulation WA growers received discounts on average as the East Coast growers avoided the pools when they had poor production seasons opting instead to fill the domestic void and leave the cost of pool management to the WA producer.
Don't forget WA had the worst drought in history 2 years ago ... WA has a high cost base because we are largely export orientated (ie more freight and logistics cost) and the domestic market (cream market) is very limited. WA growers bear the cost of running the grain handling and logistics infrastructure without the god given right to realise the equity of this essential infrastructure on their balance sheets ie CBH. The average grain producer would have around $500k of equity in CBH. At present they can only record $1 from a single share they have as equity.
