Andrew Rea from Bowen is an Australian Beef Association (‘ABA’) Director. He wrote a letter calling for a return to democracy in the Australian livestock meat industry. (It was recently posted on the ABA’s website http://www.austbeef.com.au).
The long and the short of Andrew’s comments is;
1. while all livestock producers pay tax levies to MLA this does not provide them with a vote. i.e. They then have to register as an MLA member.
“”At 2009, MLA AGM approximately 47,000 MLA members …less than 1/5th of Australia’s 200,000 producers”, are MLA members and so were able to vote. Of these, only 5,085 (about 11%) actually did vote. But then, the top 50 members can out-vote the other 5,035 by weight of their numbers of votes. (And many of these are from processors, the natural enemy of the producer – ed).
2. Cattle Council’s membership represents about 10% of the industry, through their association with State Farm Organisations. However, for some reason ‘it’ is stating things that most producers just don’t agree with. e.g. Cattle Council has said it is outrageous for ABA to call for MLA’s demise by 2011 for working against democracy in the Industry.
Solution
Mr. Rea proposes that the Minister for Primary Industries organise a one person one vote plebiscite, asking in the name of democracy,
a) Should the status quo remain or -
b) Should there be a new industry structure based on a ‘One Vote One Value system’, with votes automatically given to all producers who sell cattle in that year?
What do you think?
Please leave your comment below.
Archibald said
Yes Democracy would be great.
However the current structure where all the organisations are comprised of Commonwealth employees can never be democratic, nor can they truly represent livestock producers
The only way democracy will be returned is if MLA , CC and all the other bodies that appear to represent us are removed.
The new body must comprise livestock producers only, and be totally independent of Government, then we have democracy.
The Serf said
I think Andy has a great idea; the big problem will be to extricate the processors and destroy the prescribed bodies’ legislative stranglehold on the livestock sector; the $200 million is a big incentive to keep screwing us.
It will be an absolute necessity to identify just who is a “producer” of livestock by a process of Registration. This can be done in several ways but all will require a removal of the current “intermediary” system. The most sensible registration is by ABN and the taxpayer pays direct to the ATO through that system, and Identified by a plastic card system like the Grains industry; it needs to be made a necessity to quote your registration to sell livestock.
This is a vital necessity as the Processors are voting at MLA AGM’s by a fraudulent representation. MLA constitution says… “only Levee payers can vote as Producer members.” Under the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Act 1999 s5 (2),(4) Levy is not imposed by the Act if cattle are purchased by a processor for fattening or agistment for a period before slaughter by the processor; i e the cattle are not subject to the Levee when they are slaughtered. If the processors are paying on their feedlot cattle (which I doubt) then that is a gift to the Commonwealth and not the Tax (levee).
I am part of a group that investigated Swift in the AMH days and found that MLA allocated voting rights to Swift equal to the national through put of their annual kill. This is still the case today. This is the levee monies that Swift deducted from “producers” Invoices as an “intermediary” not as a levee payer. There are no voting rights at all in that even under this corrupted system, but MLA need the Processors as a means of control at AGM’s to enforce their “programs”.
I firmly believe there must be a total separation of Livestock owners and Processors; we produce livestock; they produce meat; under the current structure we pay for all their marketing and on David Palmers own admission earlier his year Livestock owners have not seen a rise in real terms since the ‘50s.
Livestock owners need to be independent again and not indentured servants to the “industry” as we are now; we hold the whip hand as we are the only source of raw material for the Processors in a world of declining livestock numbers and declining food generally.
A referendum or plebiscite on a 1 vote per person is what I would support as a start.
Peter G said
Gee, ‘Serf’, I didn’t realise that about AMH/Swift and the processors votes. How can they be outvoting us producers with votes from the levies we have paid when we sold to them? They have only deducted the money for the levies – not paid them! That is OUTRAGEOUS!! Surely that is a case for ASIC somehow!!
RW said
The whole MLA (Ltd) structure is a farce, if not a fraud in the first place. We are consistently informed (told) by industry officials that because MLA is registered under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) that it (MLA) is an independent of Government corporation, and is therefore subject to normal ASIC oversight like any normal corporation. The idea that this is the case is nothing more than fraudulent misrepresentation.
MLA limited is nothing more, or less than a Commonwealth Authority and is registered under the Corporations Act in name only, as an “Exempt Public Authority” and is not subject to the rules of ASIC.
The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) at section 9 defines an “Exempt Public Authority” as:
” exempt public authority ” means a body corporate that is incorporated within Australia or an external Territory and is:
(a) a public authority; or
(b) an instrumentality or agency of the Crown in right of the Commonwealth, in right of a State or in right of a Territory.
Further in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) at section 57A (ss2) it defines the meaning of a corporation as:
(2) Neither of the following is a corporation :
(a) an exempt public authority ;
(b) a corporation sole.
So the whole damn show is nothing more than a fraud meaning that MLA’s Memorandum and Articles of Association and anything purporting to originate from the Memorandum and Articles including but not limited to an AGM is not worth the damn paper it is written on.
I agree with Andy’s sediments and that of the previous posts, it is either time for a grass-roots vote on a one vote, one value or, shut this albatross down.
The Serf said
Peter G;
No I don’t think the ASIC can do anything about it, I also agree with the comments re ASIC of RW above. My group initiated a Australian Federal Police investigation into MLA about 4 years ago and the AFP reported back to us that MLA and the Prescribed Industry Bodies were Commonwealth Civil Servants under the protection of a Minister of State (DAFF) and the only person that could request an investigation was that Minister. The AFP official told us that there was acute concern within AFP because the initial investigation they had conducted into MLA regarding the expenditure of Tax money revealed an unacceptably low level of Ministerial oversight on the actual expenditure of Consolidated Revenue Funds; of concern also to AFP was the fact that $150 Million (as it was then) was involved, apparently the acceptable level of oversight on this amount of funds within Government is far more than what is currently in place in the Structure. The official AFP response was … we can see your concern … it is justified … but we can’t act … they are protected my the Minister.
That’s why I think ASIC cant act…
Archibald said
My opinion is that the R&D funds given away for “R&D projects” by MLA are blatant “pork barrelling” for votes from the recipients, at the MLA AGM’s.
I remember looking at R&D years ago only to find that “research” done here was essentually a “copy” of R&D carried out overseas years before. R&D in MLA is the biggest farce there is. One example I remember was investigations in e-coli , similar work had been done overseas and these results were available to Australia, however MLA had to re invent the wheel. Why?
Another example is research into strip grazing when everyone already knew the benefits.
There are millions and millions of dollars coming out of Consolidated Revenue (originating from livestock producers transaction levies) supporting what is basically in my opinion a corrupt structure where votes are “bought” to facilitate the retention of a non democratic Government construct to control the industry.
The SERF I think is probably correct, this governmnet organisation and all its Commonwealth employees have the protection of the Minister, in fact the whole “dodgey” structure was the construct of Anderson in the late 90′s.
Even if the voting rights were changed, and this might be a good step in the right direction, we still have a government organisations full of Commonwealth employees paid from Consolidated Revenue. If I were a member of the new organisation with more effective voting rights, I still cannot have a say on the financial dealings of MLA because only Government can control the expenditure of Consolidated Revenue. How many livestock producers actually realise this. While our levies go to Government and are put into Consolidated Revenue no livestock producers or even a majority of producers can have a say on MLA expenditure. Thats why the RED Meat Industry structure is a farce; it needs winding up and a true livestock producer group needs to rise from the ashes to truly represent livestock producers.
No wonder nobody attempts to have a vote, its pointless anyway.
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