Hockey warning on GrainCorp sale pressure

Treasurer Joe Hockey has delivered a thinly veiled warning to Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss and the Nationals not to attempt to bully him over the proposed sale of GrainCorp to a US company.

Mr Hockey has until December 17 to decide on Archer Daniels Midland's $3.4 billion takeover bid for the bulk grain handler.

"I will not be bullied or intimidated by anyone when it comes to dealing with the national interest," Mr Hockey said yesterday.

The Nationals are furious at the prospect of the grain handler ending up in foreign hands and have used newspaper articles to anonymously threaten to quit the coalition if the Treasurer allows the sale.

It looms as Prime Minister Tony Abbott's first big test in managing the Liberal Party- Nationals coalition.

On the weekend, Mr Truss said if GrainCorp were sold to ADM, food security would be affected as well as Australia's influence on world markets.

"If we don't own any of the supply chain, it'll be very difficult for us to ever make decisions which can in fact influence whether or not our grain industry is to prosper or whether it won't," he said.

Nationals MPs have also raised concerns about ports, rail and freight access.

But ADM has promised growers it would not restrict ports access or increase fees to uncompetitive levels.

"When we talk about the investment that we'll make in the supply chain . . . and the commitments that ADM is making, we're not going to change the way GrainCorp operates, in fact we want to improve it," ADM grains president Ian Pinner said.

Victorian rural Liberal MP Dan Tehan, a vocal supporter of the sale, told ABC radio this week that he was confident the competition watchdog would closely monitor GrainCorp's access undertakings.

Mr Tehan said ADM's $3.4 billion would see a much-needed $50 million investment in grains infrastructure.

"We need to get more cost-effective ways to get our grain to overseas market," he told ABC radio.

"ADM potentially offer that and that's something we should look at, because if our grain growers can get a cheaper way to get their grain overseas it means more profit in their pocket."

I will not be bullied or intimidated by anyone when it comes to dealing with the national interest." *Joe Hockey *