Coalition's Agrarian Socialism

So the fishing industry needs to be bailed out with taxpayer largesse (The Age, 24/11/05), causing prices to rise because it's "the law of supply and demand". But if those laws aren't working presently, I fail to see how doling out hundreds of millions of dollars of our money will make them kick in.

Why doesn't the industry raise cash by levying all those Tuna Barons and Abalone Earls who, in effect, just won a lottery? Or maybe, given the recent bumper crop (The Age, 24/11/05), the wheat farmers could return their massive free hand-outs to fund the bail out? Let's ask the astute business minds of the "re-trained" Queensland sugar farmers for ideas!

I detect the fishy odour of National Party agrarianism: "privatise the profits, socialise the losses".