THE besieged Victorian Farmers Federation is now under attack on the dairy front.
Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach is expected to hand down his ruling on whether the VFF will have to stage an extraordinary general meeting, which supporters want to remove president Emma Germano.
Now its dairy farmer members are demanding Craig Dwyer, their member on the board, be removed and replaced with former Nationals MP and Lockington dairy farmer Paul Weller.
Mr Weller is also the man most likely to be the next VFF president if the bid by former grains council leaders to sack Ms Germano at an extraordinary meeting gets up.
United Dairyfarmers of Victoria president Bernie Free has confirmed his policy council met VFF chief executive Brendan Tatham last week to have Mr Dwyer removed.
The latest fight to engulf the VFF was sparked by its board decision to drag eight UDV nominees off the Australian Dairy Farmers national council, with a more than $300,000 debt at the heart of the stoush.
Former VFF Grains Council president Brett Hosking said both parties had presented their cases to the court and everything was on hold until Justice Beach’s ruling.
He said there was nothing more to be said until that happened.
VFF also declined to comment on the issue before the court judgment.
Mr Dwyer has told The Weekly Times he had not been disendorsed.
When contacted late last Friday, Mr Dwyer texted the paper a copy of a motion the UDV policy council had passed on Monday last week, which backed him on the basis he ensured “UDV is represented at national level”.
However Mr Free claimed the policy council had “rescinded that resolution” at 2.27pm on Friday and had called on the VFF to follow its constitution and allow the UDV to replace Mr Dwyer.
The constitution is the same weapon the grains-driven campaign is using in its fight to dump Ms Germano, along with VFF vice-president Danyel Cucinotta.
Section 7.2.1 (e) of the VFF constitution says commodity groups such as the UDV should each establish a policy council to “nominate representative(s) of the commodity policy council to the board”.
While the battlefront widens in Victoria, on the national stage the ADF appears almost dysfunctional with just one Victorian, Ben Bennett, on its board, and none on its 15-member national council.
The election of a new ADF president should have been completed last month, but even a week’s delay to give the VFF time for its UDV to fill its national council nominees failed to deliver.
The VFF owes ADF $344,000 in subscriptions but is refusing to pay on the grounds of value for money.
In August it told members “the ADF are the most expensive agricultural advocacy organisation for the VFF to be a member at $344,000”.
VFF said the figure was “nearly seven times the cost of the second most expensive national peak council and 60 per cent more expensive than NFF membership”.
