MEMBERS of the Victorian Farmers Federation have voiced their concerns about a decision by Lower Murray Water to remove elections for advisory committee positions.
Farmer representatives on the LMW Customer Service Advisory Committee will no longer be elected by the people they are representing.
Committee members will instead by selected by a panel comprising of one LMW board member, one LMW representative, one irrigation industry representative and one independent member.
A spokesperson for LMW previously said that they were looking to create a “more efficient and effective process” after struggling over the past 10 years to gain enough nominees to run elections.
“We want to ensure we have representation of all rural customer views and experiences on the committee, so that our services and operation best reflect the community we serve,” the spokesperson said.
“The board has settled on a new rural customer committee structure where we have aligned alike committees and moved to an expression-of-interest process. This was to streamline the process.”
But VFF water council chair Andrew Leahy raised concerns about the move away from the democratic election model, worried it could mean farmers have little say over the management of the irrigation business that their livelihoods depend on.
“Farmers and other water customers want to have a say on who is representing their interests on water issues. Anything less is undemocratic,” Mr Leahy said.
“This will see LMW controlling the process to ensure they appoint who they want on their customer committees rather than what the actual customers want.”
Mr Leahy said customer committees should be made up of “progressive irrigators and diverters” who are well respected and “will not be a lackey of the board”.
“These committees at times will need to challenge the decisions of LMW – this is not possible with an appointment process controlled by LMW,” he said.
“Customers’ committees are just that, they are to be made by customers. Anything less goes against its original purpose.”
A spokesperson for LMW said the company considered the new process “the most appropriate way” to gain a “diverse range of customers’ opinions”.
