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June 3, 2026 15 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's plenty happening around the place, and it is, without

(00:02):
a doubt, a pretty difficult time for businesses. We caught
up with the Chamber of Commerce a bit earlier this
morning and spoke about the impact in our varying different
factors at the moment and what that is having on
some of our Northern Territory businesses. But many sectors across
the economy as well are feeling it in different ways
with the cost of living, the interest rates, and the

(00:23):
rising fuel costs. But for those in the agriculture sector,
access to the cost of fertilizer and insecticides is another
added burden. And now to top that off, of course,
the increase in the minimum wage, as we discussed a
little earlier, it's another nail in the coffin. Now joining
us in the studio is Leo Scrilios. Good morning to you, Leo.

(00:45):
I hacked that last name. Mate, You're gonna have to say.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It for me properly. Scliros I can't.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I cannot roll my ass. It is lovely to have
you in the studio. It's been a while. How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I'm I'm good, goodish, goodish. Considering everything that's going on,
I'm still kicking, still alive. These lots going on. The
weather's great, and that's about it for the positives.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, well, there's so much going on in your sector
right now. Tell us a little bit about some of
the issues that you're grappling with.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Look, a lot of the main costs there and previous
to this announcement regarding the wages, and I don't begrudge
workers receiving a pay rise because let's face it, it's
costing everyone to fill up, it's costing everyone to pay
their rent and pay their mortgage, so grocery has gone up.
And a lot of these issues relate to the current

(01:38):
crisis and the cost of fuel, so it affects everything
we buy. There's been talks and I think the fuel
surcharge went up to sixty eight percent. It's down to
thirty eight now, but even for the last few weeks,
they're saying after July, we're expecting it to shoot back
up again. So I don't know how they know that

(01:59):
in it advance, but yeah, it's pretty strange. The main
difference between our industry and many other industries. We can't
pass the costs on and that's the main issue where
price takers, not price makers. So we send our fruit
to market, and our costs might go up thirty percent

(02:21):
and we might get thirty percent less for our fruit
rather than thirty percent more. It just depends on how
much fruit supply and demand, how much fruit is in
the market on that given day.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
So like how growers, how is everybody feeling at the
moment as you approach this mango season.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Very cautiously, and you know, I've said to people, try
and get with your friends and try to purchase things together.
Think about what fruit you're going to be harvesting, not
your whole orchard, because I see a lot of fruit
going to ground this year with a production and falling

(03:02):
below the cost of production very quickly in the season.
So there's no use spending money putting fertilizer and spraying
that part of the orchard and even watering some parts.
So even a degradation of orchards might be occurring this
year because people just are tightening their belts.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Look at what kind of quantities are we potentially talking?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh, we could be talking half the crop? Really yeah, yeah,
I mean it's it's been as you said, nail in
the coffin, it's been nail after nail after nail, and
I've done a report, my report in main game matters.
I'm also said on the national board, the ami A board,
so I highlighted that last month before this announcement, that

(03:54):
our costs are pretty much five dollars a tray, six
dollars a tray up on last year. And to receive
that that's that's a lot of growers profit margin or even
more than their profit margin portray.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
So this announcement is just certainly or is it going
to be a situation realistically, like you've touched on there
that you know, there'll be there'll be parts of your
crop that you you know that that maybe you just
don't you just don't work with, you know. And then
you're also with the with the minimum wage going up
and you're having to deal with that that the reality
is that you're just going to not have as many

(04:30):
workers and and going to have to downscale how you're
doing things.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, it's all part and parcel. I mean, yeah, look,
it's less workers. And over the years, I believe in
many growers believe the productivity has also decreased. So you know,
workers are thinking, well, we don't have to work as hard.
The unions are looking after us, you know that. I

(04:55):
don't know the new society, they just don't believe they
need to work as hard for their money. And so
we've got a double whammie there that we're paying more
for the workers and they're producing less per hour. So
it's and that's not a general rule, but you know,
of course there's other people that go the other way.

(05:16):
But you know, it's I don't know where we're going,
but I know the government is being pretty careless with
its money. So they're collecting a lot of these taxes.
And many of the businesses that are not small businesses.
We've got large businesses like Moyob Telstra. They just they

(05:41):
just whack on four dollars a month, six dollars. And
you know, let's let's look at how many people are
with Telstra. Let's look at the government's legislated that everybody
goes through Moyob. So every business in Australia has to
pay that charge that they like it or not. And

(06:01):
we're talking of you know, fifty sixty million dollars a month. Yeah,
and then what do we do with it. Let's go
and buy some submarines or something. On the bar.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yep. Yeah, it's like, well, you'd be scratching your head
right because you'd be going on putting all my heart
earned cash into paying these different taxes.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Well, it's every tax pay in Australia. It's it's not
just small businesses, it's every housewife and worker in Australia.
And we're being blood dry and then the money just
seems to be handle Yeah, very callous.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, not as well as what we'd like and the
service delivery. Like I think that all of us, if
you were getting a lot back in terms of your
service delivery and in terms of your health care and
all those kinds of things, you might go okay, well
I can understand where my tax money's going. But for
a lot of us at the moment, we really don't
feel that way, which is why it's such a kick
in the guts. Yeah, tell me, is there any way

(07:02):
you know, like with in terms of you, well, I
guess it's not really. But in terms of you, you know,
your fuel costs, things like fertilizer and insecticides, how is
all that tracking at the moment? It sounds like those
costs are still continuing to go up and having an impact.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh definitely. Like I mentioned before, I think it was
up to sixty four percent the transport levy and it's
down to thirty eight. But there's been discussion that that's
going to go up and the probability of it hitting
you know, somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred percent
by the end of the year when we're when we're harvesting,

(07:40):
they're saying is quite likely. So you know, that means
every good goods that transported, not for just the mango industry,
but every person in Darwin, YEP is going to go up.
And we're talking three four hundred dollars per palet. So
if you work that down to goods, you know, depending

(08:01):
on what your goods are, it's a lot. It could
be a twenty twenty percent on top of everything.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
What for you. I know it's tough, but you know what,
what's the long term future looking like for our industry.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
I don't think it's looking very good. We seem to
begin getting pressure from every angle and not much assistance.
You know, we did have the Minister Gerard Malett at
our AGM and he's put forward a lot of help
for the mango tweak tip die back research. So that's

(08:41):
great assistance. But you know, I've always asked for money
directly in the growers' pockets, so subsidies on fertilizer or
freight or whatever else, or power that might assist growers
because we do we do stimulate the economy and one
of the highest in any industry.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I know you've said that, well you've said throughout
the interview that you are realistically there are going to
be a lot in the industry that are going to
have to sort of downsize the way that they're doing
things throughout this year. If that wasn't the case, I mean,
how was the crop looking after all the rain.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Well, it's not so much as the crop because the
early crop just isn't there. There was some early flower
and that got destroyed with rain, as you would imagine,
And we're still waiting on a lot of the flowering.
But basically flowering doesn't come out by the end of June,

(09:44):
then it's going to be in July, which will mean
a harvest of late October and to November, which will
be then clashing with Catherine and Queensland and everything else
and won't be worth picking. So whether it's there or not,
it might just have to go to ground.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Is there anything that can be done at the moment
in terms of I mean you sort of touched on
this as well with the minister, But is there anything
that could be done at the moment, you know, on
a northern territory scale, on a federal scale to try
and support out the mango industry.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
I guess, like a lot of other countries, I guess
if you look at somewhere like America, they have a
lot of subsidies. They have specialized things like red diesel
where they add a die and say, well, those tractors
and so on aren't being used on the road. They
shouldn't have to be subjected to all these extra costs.
And you know, we can give growers cheap diesel for

(10:41):
their farm machinery and farm vehicles, only I know they
penalize anyone being caught on the road with that sort
of it's the same diesel, it's just got to die
in it. And of course any other subsidies. Years ago,
we did have a fertilizer subsidy. I think during COVID

(11:01):
there was an export freight subsidy. But yeah, I really
don't know. Interest rates is another thing. And people say, oh, well,
there's been a big downturn. All the figures that are
coming down now it's showing a downturn in their economy
and spending and whatever else. And everyone's you speak to

(11:24):
is saying everyone's in pain, everyone's hurting, people aren't spending.
But the government's still talking inflation and possibly another interest
rate hike. And I don't see that. All I saw was, well,
during the COVID crisis, we were all locked down, everyone
was forced to save. They printed a whole heap of money,

(11:45):
and all that money's out there now and well there's
more spending. What a surprise. Well, if there's more money
out there, of course it's going to be so I
think the inflation was caused by the printing of all
this money. Ye right, Well I'm not an economist, but
if there's more money out there, people are going to
be spending it and it yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Look, you know, I feel for you guys. It must
be a tough time at the moment for our mango industry.
And we know that it's such a huge industry for
the Northern Territory, right, you know, you're keeping things moving
and it's an industry that we need to value and
we need to do what we can to support it.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
That's right. Well, I mean they say Australia was built
on the back of sheep and grain. You know, farmers
have always paid a big, big role and horticulture has
a three to four times multiplier, so meaning that anything
at any person we employ it then creates another four

(12:46):
jobs in other industries and supermarkets, in retail and everywhere, restaurants,
some juice spars and so on. But you know, and
that's not being looked after. I don't feel like the
industry is getting the support it needs. I think it
just seems to be getting a hindrance every step of

(13:09):
the way. Labor's another big issue, the seasonal worker program.
They've just moved that to six months, which doesn't suit
the mango industry. And I think the other law was
the super payments.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
There has to be more discussion with industry and particularly
in the regions, in my humble opinion, from the government,
particularly the federal government. When some of these big changes
are happening, you have to have an idea about how
it is going to impact those people on the ground
before you make these massive changes. Talk to real people

(13:45):
who are out there and listen to what they say.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, that's one of my least favorite words, industry consultation.
And I found that out on my very first year.
I think I've been president now for nine years and
we were talking about the VHT plant and they said
the funding was said about by industry consultation. So I
called everybody in the industry, including the CEO of AMIA

(14:12):
and Anti Farmers and I was now president, and TMIA
and every export. I knew every agent, everybody on you
and no one knew anything about it. I did find
out it was the person in the government that was
dealing with mango exports who was the person that was consulted.

(14:34):
So that blosure industry consultation because it's someone in the
industry and it could be someone that's making boxes or
glue for the industry.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, you go, no sit down, sit down with people
that are genuinely in the industry. And here the way
that the changes are going to have an impact. You
have to and particularly I think when you look at
regional Australia as well, have a think about regional Australia
and how we operate differently to those capital cities. It
just blows my mind to be honestly, you just think

(15:07):
come on, sit down and have a discussion with us.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Well, look, it's really good to speak to you this morning.
Please keep in contact, let us know how things are
tracking along. We might try and catch up with the
minister just to see if there's anything happening here locally,
to try and support you guys. But I really appreciate
you joining us in the show.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Thank you very much. I wish I could come in
and have a good news.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Story like sh oh, yeah, we'll wonder.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Well we did a few years back with the Mango
Madness Festival. You know that was a great, a great
thing and probably won't be happening this year, but I'm
pushing for next year.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah awesome. Well let us know, and we're always happy
to support you guys where we can. Thank you very much,
lovely to have you in the studio. Thank you so much,
and will if you do want to send us a
message this morning and talk more about that discussion that
we've just had there with Leo, who's the president of
the Northern Territory Mango Industry Association.
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