Quote:
|
A regulatory body in place to stop people holding a monopoly on the industry.
|
No; that was not its reason for being. I had some very minor involvement one of its earlier review under competition policy in a past life as an economist in the WA State Public Service. It was a artefact of post WWII shortages.
Per
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato...tern_Australia etc
Quote:
|
The Potato Marketing Corporation of Western Australia (PMC) was a statutory corporation created by the Government of Western Australia's Marketing of Potatoes Act 1946.[1] It was charged with managing the supply of fresh table potatoes in Western Australia.[2] The statutory corporation operated to ensure licensed growers supplied potatoes all year round to the WA consumer market.[3] The corporation was self-funded by revenue from licence fees and did not receive financial support from the state government.[3] The agency dictated the varieties and volume in the WA potato market.[4]
|
Or in more detail per the attached extract from its last annual report at
http://pmc.wa.gov.au/publications/annualreports.cfm
What it certainly did achieve was to severely restrict the variety of potatoes available to consumers in WA to a just a couple in practice for many years and artificially raise prices to consumers without (due in my view to its operating inefficiencies) increasing farmers returns and in my view give cushy jobs to same right leaning Board members. I am so glad it has gone.
Quote:
|
Salt of the earth farmer just wanted the right to treat the people of Perth to magical new varieties of spuds
|
In effect the PMC actually did the exact opposite. I am also told that market analysis also shows that the volume of different varieties in the consumer market has increased since the the demise of the PMC.