NTCA renews Red Meat Advisory Council review call

By James Nason21 Aug 2012

The Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association has reiterated its call for the role of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC) to be reassessed, building on concerns expressed by members at its annual general meeting in March.

The NT producer group, speaking after a meeting with the Cattle Council of Australia in Alice Springs last week, is also backing calls for a percentage of producer levy funds to used to “power up” the resourcing of state and national representative bodies.

RMAC is a national peak body established in 1998 to provide a single, united voice for the various sectors of the red meat industry on issues of importance to Government.

The six groups it represents are the Cattle Council of Australia (grassfed cattle producers), the Australian Lot Feeders Association (grainfed cattle producers), the Australian Meat Industry Council (red meat processors), the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, the Sheepmeat Council of Australia and the Goatmeat Council of Australia.

RMAC was formed to allow the red meat industry to speak to Government with one voice instead of six different voices when each sector held a uniform position on an issue.

However, the council is unable to speak on behalf of the industry when consensus between all members on an issue is not achieved.

NTCA members expressed concern at the association’s annual general meeting in Darwin earlier this year about RMAC’s inability to speak on behalf of producers and live exporters during last year’s live export ban, because the processing sector did not support their calls to end the ban.

NTCA chief executive officer Luke Bowen said the association believes an assessment should be made of RMAC’s relevance, functionality and performance against its strategic plan.

“Cattle producers are really questioning the need to be joined at the hip with the processors in these structures, and whether we should be separate,” he said.

The Cattle Council of Australia, through a six-person “writing group” established in mid-July, is currently drafting a model to replace the existing Cattle Council of Australia and a Beef Industry Strategic Plan, building on the results of a four-month consultation process conducted with grassfed producers earlier this year.

While details of the draft restructure model have not yet emerged, it is clear that a central component will be a plan to use part of the $5/head cattle transaction levy to fund cattle industry representation in future.

The legality and practicality of using funds collected via a compulsory levy for industry representation and lobbying purposes has yet to be determined, as does the question of whether it will be supported by both industry and government.

However, for its part, the NTCA believes the concept offers a potential solution to providing the resourcing the state and national representative bodies need to drive better advocacy and policy.

“There is a need for a realignment of resources to power up the representative bodies so they can give stronger direction to the peak service providers, such as Meat & Livestock Australia, and to Government,” Mr Bowen said.

Details of the Cattle Council of Australia's draft restructure proposal are expected to be emerge in coming weeks. 

 

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2 comments

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  • John Michelmore - 23 Aug 2012
    Under the existing red meat industry structure Cattle Council cannot represent grass fed cattle producers and retain their current location as a presecibed body within the structure. This would be a total conflict of interest being under the direction of the Minister (prescibed) and also puporting to be a grass fed producer political lobby group or representation group to Government. Nobody in their right mind can accept that CCA (or whoever) can do both!! Lets face it the existing structure just does not work for grass fed producers; at a time when the industry is in crisis, grass fed producers have had no representation of any beneficial effect. Lot feeders and processors could be seen rubbing their hands to gether in glee whern the live export ban was introduced. Some of these supported the live export ban in the press. Hence grass fed representation must be outside of the current structure on its own and representing itself without the baggage of the remaining prescibed industry bodies. Grass fed producers want control of their industry segment , set their own levies, elect their own directors and allocate these funds for marketting and R&D for the grass fed industry; not some half backed rearrangemnt that achieves nothing for the grass roots of the red meat industry.
  • Gaucho Gill - 22 Aug 2012
    The NTCA has not disclosed the true structure of the current "industry"; what they have failed to tell your readers is that the whole of the "industry" is the subject of Commonwealth legislation, strictly controlled; "industry" itself in this context has a statutory meaning within the legislation; and remember CCA has always been at the lead of the “industry” mob. The fact is that the Commonwealth has acquired (or should I say Appropriated) a legal interest in all domestic animals, including all our cattle, through-out Australia; it is a nationalized industry; they say it was legislated in the national interest in the Bills Digest. The groups Mr Bowen mentioned in the article are “Prescribed" as Public Servants (or more precisely Commonwealth Public Officials) at section 4 of the Regulations to the enabling Act (AMLI Act 1997); the expanded group at s4 includes RMAC. In layman’s term this means they answer directly to the Minister. For the purposes of the Prescribed Status at s4 the so called Industry Groups (i.e. CCA) are directly subject to section 69 of the AMLI Act 1997 which says; AUSTRALIAN MEAT AND LIVE-STOCK INDUSTRY ACT 1997 - SECT 69 Ministerial directions (1) The Minister may, in writing, direct a prescribed body to do the things specified in the direction. (e) any (other) matter with respect to which the Parliament has power to make laws under the Constitution. There can be no wider ambit than that!!!! So does NTCA support such a totally Government controlled Industry Structure? They are calling for a review; do they propose to review the whole deal or just change the chairs around on the deck of the Titanic? Does NTCA not realize that most of us around Australia have long since become aware of the Government status of CCA and resigned and left the SFO/CCA/MLA groups? So the NTCA also supports compulsory Unionism? That’s what Mr Bowens proposal to fund the operations of SFO’s and CCA from Levees amounts to. So the story goes that if your policies have no support because the members you’re supposed to represent do not like the erosion of rights including property rights enforced by the very CCA/SFO/MLA/AUSMEAT, and your voluntary membership collapses, you simply ask the Government to enact a Tax in the Form of a Levee and continue to enforce the Government’s will!!!!!! What a novel idea?? What about the 84% of Grass-fed producers nationally who are not members of the SFO/CCA model, how does NTCA propose that the CCA with more Government Tax funds forcibly extracted from them is going to engage them; by more force???? We would like to hear Mr Bowen’s expanded reply, in addition … How is more money to CCA going to fix the economic disaster that is permeating the grass-fed Cattle sector? There seems to be absolutely no economic skills in CCA at all!!!

 

 

 

Home 24 May 2013

NTCA renews Red Meat Advisory Council review call

By James Nason21 Aug 2012

The Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association has reiterated its call for the role of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC) to be reassessed, building on concerns expressed by members at its annual general meeting in March.

The NT producer group, speaking after a meeting with the Cattle Council of Australia in Alice Springs last week, is also backing calls for a percentage of producer levy funds to used to “power up” the resourcing of state and national representative bodies.

RMAC is a national peak body established in 1998 to provide a single, united voice for the various sectors of the red meat industry on issues of importance to Government.

The six groups it represents are the Cattle Council of Australia (grassfed cattle producers), the Australian Lot Feeders Association (grainfed cattle producers), the Australian Meat Industry Council (red meat processors), the Australian Livestock Exporters Council, the Sheepmeat Council of Australia and the Goatmeat Council of Australia.

RMAC was formed to allow the red meat industry to speak to Government with one voice instead of six different voices when each sector held a uniform position on an issue.

However, the council is unable to speak on behalf of the industry when consensus between all members on an issue is not achieved.

NTCA members expressed concern at the association’s annual general meeting in Darwin earlier this year about RMAC’s inability to speak on behalf of producers and live exporters during last year’s live export ban, because the processing sector did not support their calls to end the ban.

NTCA chief executive officer Luke Bowen said the association believes an assessment should be made of RMAC’s relevance, functionality and performance against its strategic plan.

“Cattle producers are really questioning the need to be joined at the hip with the processors in these structures, and whether we should be separate,” he said.

The Cattle Council of Australia, through a six-person “writing group” established in mid-July, is currently drafting a model to replace the existing Cattle Council of Australia and a Beef Industry Strategic Plan, building on the results of a four-month consultation process conducted with grassfed producers earlier this year.

While details of the draft restructure model have not yet emerged, it is clear that a central component will be a plan to use part of the $5/head cattle transaction levy to fund cattle industry representation in future.

The legality and practicality of using funds collected via a compulsory levy for industry representation and lobbying purposes has yet to be determined, as does the question of whether it will be supported by both industry and government.

However, for its part, the NTCA believes the concept offers a potential solution to providing the resourcing the state and national representative bodies need to drive better advocacy and policy.

“There is a need for a realignment of resources to power up the representative bodies so they can give stronger direction to the peak service providers, such as Meat & Livestock Australia, and to Government,” Mr Bowen said.

Details of the Cattle Council of Australia's draft restructure proposal are expected to be emerge in coming weeks. 

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