Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair has called on supermarkets to make the minimum price of $1.10 a litre of milk permanent, rather than 'temporary' as at present.
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Coles and Aldi this week joined Woolworths in raising the minimum price from $1 a litre.
Mr Blair said in Orange on Wednesday the process to get the supermarkets to raise the price had been 'frustrating' as it had undervalued the product and driven many dairy farmers out of business.
There's no doubt our farmers have been hung out to dry so they can get people into supermarkets to buy probably more Tim Tams.
- Niall Blair, Primary Industries Minister
"There's no doubt our farmers have been hung out to dry so they can get people into supermarkets to buy probably more Tim Tams," he said.
"Hopefully now it's not too late. This shouldn't have happened in 2011. We shouldn't have been allowing the supermarkets to charge only $1 per litre when we know the farmers, who work 365 days a year, need more than that to survive.
"We've really need to make sure our dairy farmers are getting a proper deal from the processors and the supermarkets well and truly into the future.
"A lot of the supermarkets have said this is a temporary measure but this can't be temporary, it has to stay at the minimum at $1.10 per litre for this unbranded milk."
He said he wanted to change community awareness.
"We want people drinking labelled milk, milk from NSW and we want them to support our farmers," he said.
"This isn't a silver bullet, but it's a good start."
This week Coles said the benefits of the price rise would go directly to dairy farmers.
"Coles will increase the price of two litres of Coles Brand milk to $2.20 and three litres of Coles Brand milk to $3.30 in most Coles supermarkets from [Wednesday] morning, with the new pricing to be rolled out across all stores in coming days," the company said in a statement.
"Coles sources 100 per cent of our Coles Brand fresh milk from Australian farmers, many of whom are struggling as the impact of drought compounds ongoing challenges in the dairy industry."
The company said it is currently paying dairy processors the highest farm gate milk prices in four years, without passing on the added expense to customers.
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