Dairy stalwart pushes for $156m trust spend

Dairy veteran Bill Pyle helped set up the Gardiner Foundation, and is now calling for greater transparency over how funding is spent.

A Victorian dairy stalwart is calling for a peak body to further tap into its $156-million trust to bolster scholars, rural sectors and communities.

The first United Dairyfarmers of Victoria president Bill Pyle, Warragul, is calling for greater transparency with the Gardiner Foundation’s $156-million trust for the dairy industry.

“It’s there and it needs to be used,” he said.

“We need to broaden it more so we have more opportunities for more scholars.”

The Gardiner Foundation started in 2000 to manage an original corpus of $62 million, when dairy assets, including milk brands like Big M, were sold during the dairy industry’s deregulation.

The money has since grown to $156 million.

Gardiner Foundation chief executive Allan Cameron said investment managers would independently review its portfolio every three years.

“Our investment objective is to achieve annual investment returns equivalent to inflation plus 4.5 per cent over rolling 10-year periods,” he said.

Bill Pyle in November 1996.

Mr Pyle said the Gardiner Foundation should further the scholarship opportunities to diversify skills in regional areas, and broaden its eligibility to other industries, including healthcare.

The Gardiner Foundation currently offers tertiary scholarships to Victorians in dairy regions pursuing a career that will benefit the industry or its communities.

The foundation has awarded 82 scholarships since 2008, valued at more than $1.9 million.

The board named one of the first scholarships after Mr Pyle about one decade ago.

The former Weekly Times columnist said he had advocated for the money to be put into a trust after the industry’s deregulation.

“Thousands of dairy farmers have stopped being dairy farmers, or the farm has gone to the neighbour, and many of those men and women are in aged care facilities,” Mr Pyle said.

“We need to keep coming up with other ideas of how we can use the money to benefit the past, present and future dairy industry.”

He also believed the foundation should better its transparency.

“We’ve got to let the world know and the industry know all the special things that are happening,” Mr Pyle said.

Bill Pyle is a former UDV president. He has written an autobiography, detailing his time in the dairy sector. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Mr Cameron said the board used a Yale model to guide its annual budget planning, which would allocate between 3-6 per cent of the corpus market value.

“Gardiner Foundation’s sole purpose is to manage the investment of funds to maximise the benefits to all sectors of the Victorian dairy industry and Victorian dairy communities,” the Gardiner Foundation chief said.

Mr Cameron said the foundation would allocate its spending across several groups, with 10 per cent allocated to stewardship, 35 per cent for research and innovation, between 15 and 25 per cent to people in dairy, a further 15 to 25 per cent for community development, and between 5 and 10 per cent towards industry support.