Minister for Agriculture Bill Byrne was at the brunt of several emotional outbursts from members of the audience who took offence to several points in his address. Mr Byrne opened his address saying that nothing he was likely to hear at the summit would surprise him or in any way be a revelation.

He said he realised that water security was of paramount importance to a successful grazing operation but his government would not be building any dams. One of the reasons he gave for that was that there was little economic return to the government from building agricultural dams.

This incensed some in the audience and he was told in no uncertain terms that he was very wrong and his vision very narrow if he thought that increased agriculture production would not bring a healthy return to the government.

He stated a major reason for not building dams was that the government’s resources were finite. Mr Byrne was told forcibly by an attendee to “borrow the bloody money like we have to.”

This statement was later addressed by the Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter who said all of the dams, rail lines and major road infrastructure built in Australia had been financed by borrowing and that money was repaid from the revenue earned from having the improved infrastructure.

It was noted that the last dam built in Queensland was during Bjelke-Petersen’s era.

Cate Stuart was a grazier on Mt Morris Station which was foreclosed on by their bank. Mrs Stuart gave a heart rendering account of what she, her husband and children went through.

She recalled the horror of shooting starving cattle; not having the money to even fix the house bore and the horror of the bank increasing the interest rate.

She told attendees to never leave their properties voluntarily; something the bank advised them to do.

Economist Ben Rees told attendees to beware of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Chine saying there has never been any benefit to agriculture from any FTA signed by Australia since 1993.

He explained that there had been long term agriculture policy failure which has been a major factor in the huge problem of debt to equity ratio in many agricultural businesses.

Generally speaking, the summit gave attendees the opportunity to voice their frustration with banks and government, but little was achieved in way of solutions to the huge problems facing debt-ridden and drought-afflicted primary producers .