French President Francois Mitterrand panicked over the
prospect of a strong Germany after the Cold
War, and prodded Chancellor Helmut Kohl into accepting the euro as a
price for German reunification.
Treasury announced on Monday it had received a second takeover offer, and the
prospect of a bidding
war caused shares in the company to jump above the identical offer
price of the two bids.
That this House: (1) notes with concern the impact on the Dairy Industry
of the Coles milk
pricing strategy and that: (a) dairy farmers around the country are today seriously questioning their future having suffered through one
of the worst decades in memory including droughts, floods,
price cuts and rising cost
of inputs such as energy and feed; (b) unsustainable retail milk
prices will, over time, compel processors to renegotiate contracts with dairy farmers and the
prospect that these contracts will be below the cost
of production may force many to leave the industry; (c) the fact that supermarkets are now selling milk cheaper than many varieties
of bottled water will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back for many dairy farmers; and (d) the risk
of other potential impacts includes: (i) decreased competition as name brands are forced from the shelves; and (ii) the possible loss
of fresh milk supplies to some parts
of the country as local fresh milk industries become unviable; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) ask the ACCC to immediately examine the big supermarkets and milk wholesalers after recent
price cuts to ensure they do not have too much market power and are not anti-competitive in their behaviour; and (b) support the new Senate inquiry into the ongoing milk
price war between the country's major supermarket chains».
Prospecting, mining, storing, transporting, refining, burning, cleaning up the mess from, fighting
wars over, wild
price fluctuations, huge military costs for protection, blowing the tops off thousands
of mountains or billion gallon coal fly ash sludge spills, or oil spills or nuclear accidents or radioactive waste storage problems, or running out
of fuel resources.