Dairy advocacy groups Farmer Power and Dairy Connect have called for a royal commission into the industry, while the UDV and the region's farmers are not so sure.
In a recent Senate inquiry into the dairy industry, Farmer Power chief executive officer Garry Kerr called for the royal commission as a way to resolve the structural issues and lack of accountability he said affected all dairy farmers.
In June, Dairy Connect chief executive Shaughn Morgan said while the industry had been regularly inspected and analysed, there had never been a broad-ranging inquiry with powers appropriate to a critical analysis of the entire supply chain.
“There have been a number of stakeholder and parliamentary committees looking into the Australian dairy industry over many years, with many of their reports now gathering dust on the shelves of parliamentary libraries and MPs’ offices,” Mr Morgan said.
“A royal commission would overcome the lack of will in all governments in implementing appropriate reform in an industry where market failure has been occurring since deregulation 20 years ago.”
Mr Kerr said a royal commission should look at all aspects of the industry, including dairy groups and the influence supermarkets and processors wield.
“We believe it's vital that this independent review with the appropriate powers to be able to delve deeply into whether levies paid by dairy farmers are necessary and if the Federal Government and the public are receiving value for their investments,” he said.
“Farmer Power believes that conflicts of interest, lack of accountability and lack of financial transparency are enough to call for a royal commission to ascertain the true impact on dairy farmers of self-serving relationships in the industry.”
UDV president Paul Mumford said if a royal commission was to be held, new information would have to be revealed.
“There have been 10 inquiries in the last 10 years for many reasons and there are further inquiries, which will shed light, such as the ACCC's inquiry into fresh food supply (the perishable agricultural goods inquiry),” Mr Mumford said.
“We have ample evidence of what we need to fix from historical inquiries.
“The question is, if we have a royal commission what additional information will it highlight that we don't already know and at what cost?”
Cohuna dairy farmer John Keely and Murrabit dairy farmer Andrew Leahy both agreed a royal commission would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“We've currently got the dairy plan (Australian Dairy Plan) being developed,” Mr Keely said.
“That's going to give us direction to help us go forward.”
Mr Leahy also questioned what a royal commission would achieve, saying a lot of the information needed to improve the industry was already available.