Queensland's Liberal National Party has issued an ultimatum to players in the state's sugar dispute: resolve your differences or we will do it for you.
Party leader Tim Nicholls said on Sunday the LNP would introduce amendments to the Sugar Industry Act in state parliament on Tuesday to compel arbitration between growers and international agribusiness Wilmar Sugar.
Mr Nicholls, who was meeting with cane growers in Ayr alongside Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, said they were left with no choice but to step in.
"We don't want to ... it should be resolved by market forces, it should be resolved by negotiations but when people can't act like grown ups the government has to step in and take the lead," he said.
He said the proposal was necessary to give growers certainty leading up to the harvest in about 16 weeks but that it had not been welcomed by Wilmar.
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"The millers are unhappy but I'm not there to represent the millers ... I'm there to represent the people who have invested over generations into their cane farms," he said.
However the Palaszczuk government argues the LNP has already damaged the industry with amendments it introduced to the act in late 2015.
State Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne has urged Mr Joyce to release the Productivity Commission's final report on the effectiveness of those amendments.
"Before the LNP defies the industry with its job-destroying legislation, all MPs should know the Productivity Commission's verdict on the impact of the 2015 amendments," Mr Byrne said.
He said the government would make a Freedom of Information request to obtain the report, which was handed to the federal government on November 15, if the government refused to release it.
Mr Joyce said earlier on Sunday he was confident the dispute could be resolved.
