THE Victorian Farmers Federation's Grains Group has attacked the Productivity Commission over the timing of public hearings into wheat export marketing arrangements.
The commission has been asked to assess the effectiveness of the arrangements in meeting the objectives of the Wheat Export Marketing Act 2008.
In a submission to the inquiry, Grains Group president Russell Amery said the public hearings coincided with harvest and further consultation on the draft report clashed with sowing next year.
"The timing will raise questions among growers as to the willingness of the Productivity Commission to truly consult with farmers," he wrote.
Mr Amery invited the commission to attend the annual VFF Grains Group conference in Horsham next year.
In his submission, Mr Amery said the Wheat Export Marketing Act should have included requirements for "owners of upcountry storage facilities to not discriminate against other accredited exporters".
He said there had been a number of examples during the past year that should have caused concern to both the ACCC and the commission.
"It is of considerable concern to the VFF that these issues do not appear to have been fully investigated by either party," Mr Amery said.
The VFF also raised concerns about the availability of market information and port-access test requirements.
Meanwhile, Wheat Exports Australia has released The Growers Report 2008, its final report on the monitoring of AWB International.
The report, released on Monday, is an analysis of AWBI's management of the 2006-07 and 2007-08 national pools.
WEA chief executive officer Peter Woods said the report was the final chapter of single-desk exporting arrangements provided for under the Wheat Marketing Act 1989.
WEA found pool returns increased for both the 2006-07 and 2007-08 pools due to a significant rise in world wheat prices and since the 1999-2000 financial year AWBI had successfully hedged the foreign exchange exposure.
WEA found there was no evidence AWBI was able to consistently price-discriminate across pools or grades in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 pools.
The report said there had been a general downward trend in supply-chain costs since the 2001-02 pool.
"For the last two pools this is likely to have been due to reduced capacity pressure on the supply chain as a result of small crops sizes," the report said.
