Rural Australia

President Obama’s first action as President was to curb the effect of ‘jobs for the boys’. He has limited lobbying by former government staffers and the employment of lobbyists into government roles.

A pertinent Australian example is the history of the 3 most recent and current NFF Chairmen (with information gleaned from the Aust. Beef Association). They are Donald McGauchie, the next Chairman, Peter Corish and the current Chairman, Mr David Crombie.

This example  also highlights the effect corporate nepotism has had on levy-based funds supposedly set-up to assist farmers .

ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger has said that farmers have shown their disillusion at the policies of NFF, by withdrawing their memberships in droves.

Mr Bellinger continued, “The NFF by being in Canberra has been staffed by people who climbed the Canberra bureaucracy ladder and forgot about the wellbeing of their members, as they tried to please those in power.  They also quickly aligned themselves with the Business Council of Australia. 

Their support for the introduction of the GST at the time astonished Senator Harradine, who said that it was the first occasion he had seen a body support the taxing of its members.  The NFF received $15 million from the then Government in appreciation of their support.

The CEO’s of NFF have a tendency for promotion into top paying employment, or a path is laid for them to enter Parliament. 

Donald McGauchie worked with the Government on the wharf dispute and was rewarded with a seat on the Reserve Bank Board and Chairmanship of Telstra. Telstra has subsequently treated the needs of farmers with scant disregard.

The next NFF Chairman, Peter Corish supported the Government in the move to the Free Trade Agreement with the USA, which has already greatly increased our trade deficit with the US. 

After retirement, Mr Corish worked closely with a former supermarket CEO to raise $300M and float the public company (Prime Ag).   Establishing such close business arrangements, it was not surprising then that the NFF was reluctant to be critical of the supermarkets against producers in the recent ACCC Grocery Inquiry.  Mr Corish has reportedly now sold some of his own country to Prime Ag for an apparently substantial profit. 

The current Chairman of NFF, Mr David Crombie, a former National Party preselection loser, has just recently organised 40% of funding and voting to go to corporate sponsors in order to gain more funding for the financially strapped NFF.  Unfortunately,  as Mr Bellinger has said, despite the NFF being originally established to represent farmers, like the MLA, it is now more closely aligned with corporate Australia (including the producers’ natural enemy, the supermarket processors – Ed). One has to wonder whether Mr. Crombie has a personal end-goal that is at odds with that of the NFF’s membership!

To further ememplify the dire situation that has resulted from the unholy alliance between the head of a farmer representative body and its members’ competitors, the farmers’ Levy Reserve Fund (under the management of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC)) is showing a substantial loss.  (And as the loss is for the year ended 30^th June 2008, therefore RMAC cannot use the current financial crisis as their excuse for the losses).

“The Levy Reserve Fund has dropped from $51 million in June 2007 to $44.5 million in June 2008” – ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger. 

Mr Bellinger said, “This money was originally collected as levies by the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation (AMLC), the predecessor of Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA).  It was then placed in a fund by the then Primary Industries Minister John Anderson to be managed by RMAC. 

The plan was to keep the Fund intact and fund the Peal Councils from the investment dividends.  We now see despite substantial losses in the Fund, the Peak Councils keep asking for more; further decimating the capital. 

Mr Bellinger continued, “Even while this loss was occurring, disbursements to the Peak Councils that were only ever supposed to come from fund dividends, increased by over $470,000 of an increase of over 20%.  The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) received an additional $187,134 bringing their total payments to $1,001,641 while the Cattle Council Australia (CCA) received an increase of $127,495, bringing their total payments to $682,421.

Some of this money also finds its way to the NFF as the Peak Councils also pay a membership fee to this organisation.  With the NFF now contemplating selling its soul to the corporate world and deserting the Family Farmer who was the purpose for the levy’s origins,  Mr. Bellinger said that, “this unaccountable back door flow of family farmer’s compulsory levies lacks transparency and is totally unacceptable“.

It’s hard to disagree with Mr. Bellinger and the ABA that, “ The Peak Councils have done little to improve the profitability of the Australian livestock producer and should not be funded by milking the (levy) Reserve Fund dry.  The assets of levy payers must be protected”. (For more see research showing levy taxes are wasted here). 

Is it worth wondering whether the whole levy system should be over-hauled and re-evaluated on a more equitable  basis, (especially if levies aren’t really increasing production throughput nor increasing real farm prices)?

What do you think?

Please leave your comments below.