Cattle Australia announces free initial membership, scaled voting

Producers will have to apply for membership but there will be no fee at first in order to bring tens of thousands of members immediately on board.

The group driving the reform process acknowledges long-term sustainable funding will depend on producers seeing value in the advocacy organisation and being willing to pay an annual membership fee.

It believes having the initial backing of thousands of members to its name will be the pathway to demonstrating that value.

The announcement came this week from the chair of the restructure steering committee Andrew Macaulay, along with details of a scaled voter entitlement plan and the longer-term suggestion for membership fees.

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The pieces are starting to fall into place for the launch of the new body, which will replace the existing Cattle Council of Australia.

A timeline has also been announced, which would see the inaugural meeting of Cattle Australia held on November 22.

Cattle Council has committed to kicking off the election process for the Cattle Australia board between July and September, providing the new constitution pulled together by the restructuring committee is adopted at a special general meeting prior.

That new constitution outlines the more democratic, direct election of board members.

The timeline has nominations for board positions on Cattle Australia closing on October 1 and the voting period ending on November 15.

The restructure steering committee finishes its role tomorrow.

Mr Macaulay said it would hand over to Cattle Council the draft constitution, applications for funding to the Red Meat Advisory Council and Meat & Livestock Australia aimed at seeing Cattle Australia through its initial period of establishment, a branding intellectual property package including the registered name of Cattle Australia and ownership of the URL and a functioning website.

Cattle Australia would be a very different organisation to what currently exists - one that was truly participatory, inclusive and demographic, Mr Macaulay said.

It would, in fact, set a new standard for agri political peak bodies, he said.

"The aim is to get momentum up and have people engaged and involved from day one," he said.

"To that effect, the need was to remove every obstacle to membership and thus the free initial membership.

"The organisation is going to have to evolve and make itself valuable to members enough that people will pay a membership fee to it."

Extensive investigation was held into how voting should occur, Mr Macaulay said.

"The committee settled on a marginal sliding scale that recognises variations in size but moderates that so there is relative equity," he said.

"That structure will be linked to an incremental fee."

In response to concerns the new body was shaping up to be just a rebranding of Cattle Council, Mr Macaulay said it would be an entirely new body, driven by direct election democracy.

There was, however, advantage in preserving existing external relationships so momentum was retained, he said.

With major biosecurity risks such as lumpy skin and foot and mouth disease in play, that was vital, he said.

"Without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, we have created fundamental change - individual membership, scaled voting, individuals directly nominated to the board," he said.

"That's a totally different organisation and that's exciting."

Other aspects to Cattle Australia announced this week include:

Mr Macaulay thanked Nationals leader David Littleproud, who worked extensively on the reform process in his former role as federal agriculture minister.

He said while many ministers had, over the years, heard the cries for reform, Mr Littleproud had invited all to the table and made it happen.

The industry looked forward to working with the new minister Murray Watt to continue the process, he said.

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