If the State Government is serious about delivering long overdue change to Western Australia's highly regulated potato industry, it is incumbent that it seeks the views of all stakeholders, not just those with a vested interest.

CCI welcomes the Agriculture Minister's acknowledgement that regulation of the potato industry has been nonsensical and that he will be moving to repeal the current Act. However the Chamber urges Mr Chance and the State Government to not falter and embrace deregulation of the potato industry fully.

A press report today says Minister Kim Chance has developed 28 recommendations which he says will make potato growing in WA less restrictive and open the industry to new players. The state's peak business organisation, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, believes this can’t be achieved without full deregulation.

If the Minister means to take advice on the recommendations, then he should not confine his consultations to a select few. It should be open to the community as a whole to comment on the proposal, not just the "industry representatives" reported to have been approached.

This is as much a matter for consumers at large, as it is for licensed potato growers and the Potato Marketing Corporation.

There is no place or need in today's modern free market economy for the government to control the potato industry by imposing a set of antiquated rules dictating who can grow potatoes, where they can grow them, and who they can be sold to and at what price.

It's time this Government freed the humble potato and allowed the marketplace to operate without unnecessary bureaucratic controls - in the same way that every other meat and fruit and vegetable industry is allowed to operate.

Statement by CCI Director Industry Policy Trevor Lovelle