Ben Bennett elected ADF president: Rick Gladigau withdraws

The deadlock in the election of a new Australian Dairy Farmers president has been broken, after Rick Gladigau withdrew.

Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett wants to sort out the dispute over Victorian Farmers Federation funding and representation.

The Australian Dairy Farmers lobby group has elected New Zealand-born Ben Bennett as its new president, after his only rival withdrew.

Up until last week Mr Bennett, who farms 400 cows at Pomborneit, was locked in a battle for the presidency with Adelaide Hills dairy farmer Rick Gladigau – with six votes each.

The ADF board hastily appointed new independent non-executive director David Beca, who was in line to gain two votes in the election.

Mr Beca was appointed after an advertisement for applicants was posted on the Governance Institute of Australia’s website for a few days last week.

Applications closed on Thursday last week and Australian Securities and Investments Commission records show Mr Beca was appointed on Wednesday this week.

But in the end Mr Beca did not have to vote, after Mr Gladigau withdrew from the race yesterday, with ADF announcing Mr Bennett’s appointment at 5.40pm.

Mr Bennett’s election as president comes despite him being Victoria’s only ADF representative.

Last month the Victorian Farmers Federation’s board pulled the nomination of eight Victorians to the ADF’s 15-member national council amid a dispute over funding that has rolled on for more than 12 months.

The VFF owes ADF at least $344,000 in unpaid subscriptions, but has refused to pay, arguing Victorian dairy farmers were not getting value for money.

The VFF’s decision has drastically weakened ADF, given Victorian dairy farmers produce two-thirds of Australia’s milk.

But Mr Bennett said his first order of business was to try and sit down with the VFF board to sort out the funding dispute and reinstate the nominations its own United Dairyfarmers of Victoria members put forward last month.

The UDV’s policy council is also demanding the VFF reinstate their nominations to the ADF board.

The VFF has refused to respond, leading the UDV to call for their dairy representative on the VFF board Craig Dwyer to be replaced with Lockington dairy farmer Paul Weller.