Saying that older farmers are nervous is a shallow patronising comment. Could it be that the more experienced farmers have a better grip on economic reality? The deregulation of the wheat industry will destroy the Australian one of Australia's greatest export industries. The implications of what our shallow politicians have done will hit home when the first significant harvest begins and when farmers are hit with the reality of huge unsold grain stocks which they will be forced to carry because there is no National pooling arrangement. The mental strain that farmers will be put under will have to be dealt with also.Their bitterness will be palpable.

The sheer arrogance and stupidity of this decision to abolish the single desk is breath taking. It was a labor minister who buggered up the wool industry and it has to be said it has never recovered and now another labor hack is going to bugger the other great rural industry - the wheat industry. Finally i take umbrage at Labor's Gary Grey - the same old mate who has had carriage of the Regional Partnerships debacle. Mr Grey's assertion that it it is 'older farmers' who are the most scared is absolute rubbish and the lamest argument i have heard. Not only are there plenty of young farmers who are extremely concerned - many after marketing their own wheat last year by forward selling and being burnt so badly they have had to sell the farm This decision to sell the out the vast majority of farmers by the Lib-Labs should is a disgrace. There was only one major Party who stood up for grain growers and that was the National Party.

No amount of education will stop the depression and dispair this undemocratic immoral legislation will cause. Australian wheat growers have no freedom of choice because both labor and liberals have removed growers right to vote on their future. The blood of Australian farmers will be on Rudd and Nelsons hands.

Labor and the Libs should form a coalition and do us all a favour. They are both a trecherous lot. The Nats would be better off with the Independants.

When you come back down to reality you'll realise that the wheat market is one of the last to face the real world. Stop whingeing and get off your backside. You're now at the mercy of the market just like producers of any other agricultural commodity. The lesson? Use some initiative and get some advice about marketing your grain.

Mr Reality. Your democratic right to have a say in this has been stripped away with the rest of us. If the rest of the other rural commodities were as big as and important as the wheat Industry they would be facing the same multinational scrabble for control. It is only a matter of time before big business comes into the other commoditties as well. Feeding the world is where the money will be in the future but not for the growers. Regional monopolies will see to that. If you as an Individual can think that you can beat a better price out of these ruthless traders then congratulation you should run for Prime Minister.

I would like to ask that all persons posting comments to this and other articles to ensure you enter your full details for when commenting. Without this simple detail comments made to others will look deceitful and cowardly.

Barely surviving, my democratic right is to have the freedom to sell wheat to whomever i like.

We live in a democratic society underpinned by capitalist ideals, not a communist one ruled by maximum intervention.

I'd prefer many multinationals bidding for my wheat in a competitive environment, rather than being totally constrained to deliver my wheat into a monopoly export pool that faces no competitive pressures.

You seem to have the typical misunderstanding that the AWB pool monopoly was actually delivering some sort of premium to Australian growers.

This is absolute rubbish in my opinion.

Premiums are delivered in a competitive environment, not the opposite. This is economics 101.

Growers in WA are receiving the best forward price basis ever for their wheat by virtue of the fact that buyers are facing competitive pressures and they are free to back sales into the export market.

Australia growers now have maximum freedom of choice (not the opposite as suggested above) because they can now expose their grain to maximum competition.

Jock's comment about huge unsold grain stocks is not a reason for a primitive export monopoly. It's a reason to start being proactive and to start preparing for such a situation. It's unrealistic to think the market can absorb a 25 million tonne wheat crop in 2 months.

Gone are the days when you can just drag your wheat into town and cash it. Stop whingeing and start preparing.

The older farmers are worried because they have seen the bad old days, and that's exactly what they were. The times when the single desk didn't exist and huge monopolies ruled.

When grain dealers, speculators and buyers have to deal with a single united front, who wins? Certainly not the overseas monopolies, whose policies are divide, conquer and then crush.

We have to meet monopolies with a united front, not meet them as powerless individuals.

It's a measure of the (lack of) ability of politicians, that they could dismantle the single desk, and 60 or 70 years of united front selling, and yet offer nothing to replace it with, except "go your own individual way".

I could well imagine the unionists, who back Labor, telling workers to forget about organising unions, and take on employers individually.

Mr Reality. You are using the same arguments that supermarkets used to deregulate milk.

Today we have about 1/3 of the dairy farmers we used to have and the supermarkets take the lion's share of its value, as well today they are trying to import milk from New Zealand.

The losers are of course both farmers and consumers.

Also, Mr Reality write your actual name - or have you got something to hide?