SADA prepared to go it alone

The association was expelled from ADF for at least 12 months on August 1 last year for ‘prejudicial conduct’, opening the door for it to rejoin the national lobby group next month.

But SADA president David Basham said that at this point of time, there was no interest from the SADA board to do so given the lack of interest from ADF to address its concerns about the constitution.

“We believe the constitution doesn’t allow us to sit on the national council as a member as they removed SA as a region for the dairy industry,” he said.

“When they removed us, they just crossed out and removed all reference to SA.

“For a new region to become a member of national council it requires an absolute majority, which is 75% cent of those attending a general meeting.

“If we’re going to be a member we need to be an equal member.”

But not all SA dairyfarmers agree with the stand.

Waitpinga dairyfarmer Bill Fraser believes it is important for SADA to rejoin ADF.

“I think SA should be part of a national lobby group and contribute to discussions on national issues,” he said.

Mr Fraser, who milks about 300 cows at his Aruna Vale property, is a strong believer in the lobbying ADF does on behalf of the dairy industry as a whole.

“There’s a lot of broad issues there beyond the scope of SADA,” he said.

“I think it is worth the membership fee to be a part of ADF.

“It’s pretty hard to put a dollar figure on getting the dairy industry as whole in front of the people that are the policy makers.”

In April this year, Mr Basham had an informal meeting with the ADF board where he outlined SADA’s concerns about the constitution and its ability to sit on the ADF board as equal members with other states.

At that meeting, he also said that if ADF wanted SADA back before August 1, there was a resolution on their books saying that could not happen and ADF would have to move another resolution to rescind that.

The ADF board then told Mr Basham that those issues were an impediment to SADA getting back into ADF and could be fixed within six weeks.

But that has not happened.

“The issue is it’s now only six days prior to that early return,” Mr Basham said.

“This process has been dragged out way too long.

“The SADA board discussed this on our weekly phone hook-up on Monday and SADA is certainly comfortable with its operations outside ADF and would need to be shown a good case by ADF for us to rejoin.”

Since SADA was expelled, Mr Basham has been involved with the ADF animal health and welfare policy advisory group as an observer because, under their constitution, he cannot participate as a member.

Before SADA was expelled, it was paying an annual membership fee of about $35,000 to ADF.

Mr Basham said that since their removal from ADF, the board had used that money to fund its own lobbying efforts, such as trips to Canberra.

“SADA still believes that a strong peak body representing the national interests is the best model for the dairy industry, but that body has to actually be achieving for the value in that membership to be there,” he said.

“I think that we, outside ADF, have been able to deliver as good a representation as we have in the past as being a member of ADF, particularly now that we strengthen our position here in SA through Primary Producers SA.

“A clear example of that is Shadow Agriculture Minister John Cobb, at our invitation, coming to SA to listen to concerns of SA dairyfarmers.

“We were able to give representation to both Opposition and Government about those concerns just as equally as well as if we were a member of ADF and possibly better, because we’re able to do it directly rather than through a national body.”

Mr Basham said the SADA board still believed it was removed last year so ADF could make changes to its constitution, which included installing direct membership of farmers and a board made up of four farmers and an independent.

“Our concern was that the structure was going to weaken State farmer organisations and their ability to control the funds going to ADF as they were just required to pay without any control,” he said.

“The new board structure moved control from smaller states in particular as it’s unlikely they are going to be able to get strong representation around that table as two seats are likely to be held by Victoria at all times and the other two are up for grabs from other states which are currently filled by Tasmania and Western Australia.” ADF president Noel Campbell was unavailable to speak to Stock Journal, however a spokesperson for ADF said talks with regard to membership were ongoing.

“We have been engaging with SADA in regard to issues that affect the dairy sector on a national basis,” she said.

Qld dairy group awaits SA decision

In February this year, the Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation (QDO) wrote to ADF giving 12 months notice of its resignation from the national lobby group, prompted by the expulsion of SADA and the process around ADF’s restructure.

QDO president Brian Tessmann said he was aware there had been moves within ADF to make it easier for SADA to rejoin and was awaiting further information from that.

“Our position is still to have a national organisation, which is an important issue for QDO, but we need SA to be a part of that for that to happen,” he said.

Mr Tessmann said if SADA did not rejoin ADF that would be something QDO would have to consider towards the end of its 12-month notice period.

“If the situation with SADA was considered and we could do something else outside ADF, we’d have to think about that,” he said.

“If QDO thought it could get better representation by being part of ADF, we’d also have to take that into consideration.

“We didn’t agree with SADA’s expulsion and believe there have got to be efforts to bring them back in.”

Mr Tessmann said QDO had seen the value in being a member of ADF in the past.

“At the end of the 12 months we’ll have to consider if it is the best value for money we can get with it,” he said.

“I’m not saying there’s no value, we just want to know what is the best value, particularly if SADA was not to rejoin ADF, in which case we’d have to look at what was best value to QDO, whether that be being part of ADF or not.”