MANAGED investment schemes will not end any time soon if the stance taken by federal and state MPs is any indication.
The Weekly Times questioned prominent parliamentary supporters of the MIS sector, with all who responded reaffirming their support.
Tasmanian Labor senator and former shadow agriculture minister Kerry O'Brien said he didn't "see why we should walk away from a mechanism that's done a lot of good".
Tasmanian Liberal senator and former forestry minister Eric Abetz said MIS was "an important mechanism which enables farmers to diversify and grow our forest estate".
Federal Liberal MP for Wannon David Hawker said he saw "no reason" to halt either horticultural or forestry MIS.
Former forestry and conservation minister Wilson Tuckey, considered by many to be the father of MIS, did not return calls to The Weekly Times.
Victorian Premier John Brumby, who had vocally opposed the Howard Government's intention to scrap MIS, did not provide a response.
In February 2007, then agriculture minister Peter McGauran said he had "long opposed the distorting effect that results from investment in agriculture for taxation reasons, rather than for production".
"One day the drought will break and our farmers will be there to reap the rewards of their commitment to the land. But those who have talked up MISs will have moved on, and with them their money which will be sunk into the next get-rich-quick scheme," Mr McGauran said.
In June 2006, Western Australian MP Geoff Prosser said it was "bad policy" to allow the MIS sector to cause "such a huge distortion in the agricultural industry".
