State bodies threaten to leave Australian Dairy Farmers unless there is change

Australian Dairy Farmers has held face-to-face meetings in Melbourne, addressing concerns raised by State groups unhappy with how the national peak body is operating. It comes after WAFarmers Dairy Council, NSW Farmers Association, and South Australian Dairyfarmers’ Association penned a joint letter threatening to leave ADF in a year’s time unless the national body made changes to its legislation and how it operated. NSW Farmers Association president Xavier Martin, who sent the letter on behalf of all three State bodies, said the decision “was not made lightly” and followed “repeated attempts” to fix issues that had impeded ADF’s ability to advocate for farmers at a national level. “We must get better efficiency and value for our advocacy dollar so we can keep farmers farming. Farmers have made it clear that they will only pay a three-figure sum, not a four or five-figure sum, to be represented effectively at a national level,” he said. “As we continue to review and renew our national advocacy, we can expect significant change so we can create processes that get positive and practical outcomes in the paddock.” WAFarmers Dairy Council president Ian Noakes said funding and staffing issues had interrupted the typical “bottom-up” approach to advocating for farmers, whereby change began at the farm gate and worked its way up to a national level. “It hasn’t actually been working that (way), and a lot of it’s coming from the top, coming down,” he said. Mr Noakes said there had not been many face-to-face meetings among ADF members, and Zoom meetings were often announced on short notice, not allowing members enough time to prepare. However, he said the recent addition of a new staff member, along with ADF meetings held on August 19 and 20, made him feel hopeful about these operational problems getting resolved. Mr Noakes was less optimistic about calls for legislative change being met. Currently, under ADF legislation, industry groups which are not State farming representatives — such as eastAUSmilk — can become ADF members, and these groups’ members are able to vote on who gets elected on to the ADF’s board. Mr Noakes said this created an unbalanced outcome when it comes to voting, and States were not being properly represented. He said said while membership for these groups was in-line with the peak body’s legislation, it was a “grey area” some ADF members were not happy about. An ADF spokesman said the meetings, held earlier this month, allowed everyone to come together and “work through issues of concern and proposals for strengthening ADF”. “Constructive, forthright and positive meetings were held, and it was acknowledged that resolution may take some time, especially as constitutional change requires consent of the majority of 75 per cent of dairy farmer members and State members,” he said. “However, it was reassuring that all members expressed a desire to continue to work together in good faith over the longer term to ensure strong dairy farmer representation.”