MLA votes down Cattle Australia's annual general meeting proposal
Just 54 per cent of voters backed an MLA constitution change for levy payers to vote on board selections, short of the 75 per cent needed for reform.
Cattle Australia’s attempt to give levy payers the right to vote on Meat and Livestock Australia’s board has failed, after the MLA board voted against the motion.
Cattle Australia sought to amend the MLA constitution to read “the selection committee may endorse more candidates than the number of vacancies to be filled at an annual general meeting”. It needed a 75 per cent majority to be carried, but the vote resolved as 54.07 per cent in favour and 45.93 per cent against.
MLA chairman John Lloyd said the board had voted against the resolution, and the chair held proxy votes. The Weekly Times has contacted the MLA about the number of voting members, proxy votes and overall members eligible to vote.
CA chairman Garry Edwards said the special resolution meant if the MLA had more than one exceptional candidate, and the selection committee failed to reach agreement, levy payers would have the opportunity to choose.
He said CA had this process, which was “incredibly robust”.
“To vote against a resolution that is getting the levy payers the right to vote (on board members) would seem somewhat hypocritical,” Mr Edwards said.
“The key issue is, if you’re choosing to vote to block levy payers’ right to vote, surely the board would reasonably abstain.”
He said CA would likely continue seeking the change at next year’s AGM, and believed a lack of choice meant fewer producers engaged with the forum.
There were about 100 people present at the MLA AGM in Adelaide on Thursday. The MLA had 50,641 members at the end of June this year, in an opt-in process for levy payers.
Mr Edwards said there had also been difficulties with producers registering to vote, after voting materials were sent via a non-MLA email address.
“What we’ll seek is to engage with the directors to try and get a process that works more functionally and allows people the opportunity to vote in this process,” he said.
Meanwhile Australian Wool Innovation, the industry’s research, development and marketing body for the fibre, held its elections last week, with growers given five candidates to choose from for three positions.
AWI does have a board nomination committee, which made recommendations on its three preferred candidates, but voting papers included all five.
The end result backed the board nomination committee recommendations.
