Claims that membership of peak dairy body Australian Dairy Farmers lacks value-for-money may be put to the test in court following a stalemate in negotiations with the VFF over unpaid fees.
The long-running dispute between the two advocacy groups has failed to resolve the issue of $500,000 owed by the VFF to ADF.
ADF president Ben Bennett said ADF had endeavoured to pursue a resolution via mediation and negotiation.
“It has become apparent that the only way to resolve this matter will likely be via court action,” Mr Bennett said.
“ADF has been very patient over the past 12 months.
“(But) the parties are too far apart.”
Mr Bennett said the ADF Board considered it had a fiduciary duty to its members to pursue the outstanding debt that it said was ‘unreasonably withheld’ by the VFF.
“Farmers should be aware these are dairy farmers’ levies that have been collected by VFF on the grounds they would be remitted to ADF.
“Not only has VFF withheld these funds, but the dairy farmer commodities group of VFF, the United Dairy Farmers of Victoria, themselves, have continually requested that VFF remit these funds to ADF.”
A statement from the VFF said ADF membership fees were ‘unfair’ and did not represent value for money for all Victorian dairy farmers and UDV members.
The VFF notified the ADF in October 2022 that it would no longer pay fees under its current membership structure.
It claimed that after more than 12 months of requests by the VFF for negotiation, a membership fee offer was made by ADF on Friday, February 9 and expired three days later.
The deadline ended two days before the next VFF board meeting.
“The VFF is disappointed that ADF is not negotiating in good faith, despite knowing the VFF board’s meeting (date),” the statement said.
VFF had no comment on any prospective legal proceedings, but said it continues to consider the needs of all dairy farmers.
A spokesperson for ADF said there had been a ‘reasonable’ amount of communication during the past 12 months.
“Any opinion that ADF sat on its and hands and didn’t respond is not a reliable one,” the spokesperson said.
“When Ben Bennett was elected ADF president, the first thing he did within hours of being elected was to go to the VFF offices to talk about this issue and there has been a lot of negotiating both before and after that — the VFF didn’t sit on their hands either.
“But the negotiations have come to nought.”
Mr Bennett said the issue of the outstanding fees was not ‘small chips’ and that the door was open to negotiate in good faith.
“We’ve got to be mindful that we are custodians of institutions and that personalities come and go, and I will too one day,” he said.
“The big thing is that we need to have connection with our farmers and, more importantly, have the mandate of our farmers.
“We don’t do this in a light manner.”
Mr Bennett rejected claims that ADF members were not getting value for money.
“It’s a bit of a throwaway term,” he said.
“Consider the mandatory code for holding a fixed minimum price for milk.
“In the past that price could float and if it is put up in Canberra one day that it become a floating price again, then that could be worth a billion dollars to dairy farmers and we’d be fighting for that not to happen.
“That’s worth a billion dollars to us, so that makes the half a million (membership) dollars a pretty good investment by farmers, don’t you think?”
Mr Bennett said he thought the VFF ‘cherry picked’ bigger issues.
“I get the impression that VFF is simplifying a lot of things and that’s all good and dandy, but I think we need to be more dynamic and that’s to be pragmatic on issues instead of letting them balloon out.
“We need to be proactive on smaller things and yes there are a lot of them.
“We should adapt that philosophy between all of us because we are all facing a tsunami of issues and should not beat up on everyone.
“An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”