The Nationals’ leader said, "Australia's dairy farmers deserve fair returns at the farm gate, as well as transparency in milk price arrangements and supply contracts."

Indeed they do, but even though Mr Turnbull publicly told the company's representatives that they would discuss “why it was that your suppliers, your dairy farmers, your co-op members were being paid prices that seemed to be at odds with global prices and are now in a position where they have substantial debts to repay” his statement is at odds with his party’s core ideology.

This is because at the centre of the government’s response is the inevitable conflict created by the PM representing the Liberal Party’s neo-liberal economic policy, which is essentially that of unregulated and unrestricted capitalism.

In contrast his Deputy, being a National Party member, should represent what is left of the old Country Party’s policy that was often referred to as “agrarian socialism”, that is, looking after the interests and welfare of ordinary rural and regional Australians.

Both parties usually manage to paper over this difference.

It’s not going to be so easy this time, as Mr Joyce’s admission that “the government would not act as ‘solicitor or the policeman’ and if we wipe out the debts and Murray Goulburn collapses, which is not success” illustrates.

It suggests that one of the Prime Minister’s staffers might have fed him those lines.

Let’s hope that the “agrarian socialists” prevail over the big end of town, and that the symposium planned for August 25 is more than hand wringing and honeyed words, which is all we have seen so far.

What of course needed are proposals for action, and they are not short on the ground, if the government cares to look to the minor parties and cross-benchers.

For example, though it might be nothing more than one of his usual attention grabbing stunts, Senator Nick Xenophon has called for the reintroduction of the school milk program.

That’s actually a great idea, providing a fair price is paid for the milk, though it is hard to see the highly sugared soft drink manufacturers’ lobbyists allowing the Liberal Party to support it.

The Australian Greens also have an action-centred solution, calling on the government to act to prevent retrospective price decreases in the dairy industry, while the ACCC investigates.

"The Greens reached out to the government and opposition months ago to propose temporarily banning dairy processors from unilaterally and retrospectively reducing the prices paid to farmers," said Senator Richard Di Natale, Australian Greens Leader

And as their spokesperson on Agriculture Senator Rachel Siewert elaborated "The Greens proposal will shift the incurred liabilities away from the farms and businesses of farmers onto the balance sheets of processors like Murray-Goulburn. This will give parliament time to consider how best to respond to this type of market failure through an ACCC investigation and an independent review of the allocation of risk in the dairy industry.”

That’s more like it.