Vale Graeme Acton - A Tribute to a Visionary Reformer
I first met Graeme Acton when I was invited to address an inaugural ABA
meeting in Brisbane in 1998. Graham was one of the cofounders of the ABA and
the 1998 Brisbane ABA meeting was attended by the Who’s Who of the Australian
beef cattle industry.
There were a considerable number of prominent industry figures at the
meeting and I cannot recall all those in attendance but I do recall Graeme
Acton’s twinkling eyes and distinctive laugh,
Dr. Rod Kater from Stanbroke who
I think was the inaugural ABA chairman, Peter Hughes, John Ayres from Kidman’s,
Sandy Munro, Roger Hann, Charlie Mort, Cameron McIntyre and Colin Hewitt.
I was asked to address that 1998 Brisbane ABA meeting on the structural issues
flowing from the then recent reforms to the red meat industry organizational
structures with particular emphasis on
the differences between the Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC)
constitution – which I had helped to draft – and the Meat and Livestock
Australia (MLA) constitution. I found it somewhat daunting to address such a
large congregation of prominent cattlemen
and I can recall fielding searching questions about the differences
between the AMPC and MLA constitutions and beef baron anger about the Federal
government’s presumption that abattoir owners were responsible and
sophisticated enough to be entrusted with the grassroots election of the AMPC’s
directors whilst cattle producers were apparently not regarded as being capable
of directly electing the levy funded producer corporation’s directors.
My next encounter with Graeme occurred some 12 years later at breakfast
the day after the large Beef’s New Direction Forum, convened by JR McDonald of Bindaree Beef at
Armidale in northern New South Wales in February 2010, which was attended by
over 1000 disgruntled cattle producers concerned about the future of their
industry. As I breakfasted by myself in preparation for my flight back to
Sydney, I noticed a nearby tableful of Queensland cattlemen including Graeme and
pretty soon Graeme, Richard Hughes and Cameron McIntyre came across to have a
chat with me. Graeme asked if I would assist in organising a follow-up forum at
Paradise Lagoons later that year.
The organisation of the Paradise Lagoons follow-up forum took place
through a series of teleconferences over the next few months between cattle
producers across Australia who called themselves, at Graeme’s suggestion, the
United Beef Group, and I was asked by Graeme to prepare a Beef’s New Direction
Strategic Plan to be launched at the forum. Significantly Graeme insisted that
the Paradise Lagoons forum and the Beef’s New Direction Strategic Plan should
address wider rural and regional issues rather than being restricted to beef
industry concerns.
Consequently I was asked to arrange for Professor Julian Cribbs, the
author of The Coming Famine, to
address the Paradise Lagoons forum with respect to food security and the coming
Asian Food Bowl opportunities. I was also asked to arrange for Senator Bill
Heffernan and then Senator Barnaby Joyce to address the forum. Other speakers
included local state politicians and processors as well as cattle producers.
The Beef’s New Direction Strategic Plan which was launched at the
Paradise Lagoons forum touched upon the impact of the resources boom which had
put upward pressure on interest rates and the value of the Australian dollar,
the effect of that boom and government policy and government influenced costs
and charges on the international competitiveness of Australia’s rural
industries in the context of the substantial subsidies given to European, North
American and South American farmers by their governments and the $6.2 billion Federal
government bailout of the Australian car industry during the GFC, the problems
that Australia’s rural industries had in obtaining access to low interest
development finance compared to the low interest development finance structures
available to Chinese and Brazilian farmers, the consequent decline in rural
industry and beef industry profitability and regional rural population in the context of
the importance of the Australian domestic market and the emerging Asian Food
Bowl opportunities, as well as touching upon the need for industry organisational
restructure.
The Beef’s New Direction Strategic Plan set out concrete solution
proposals to meet these challenges including steps that could be taken by the Reserve
Bank to address the uncompetitive burden of Australia’s high interest rates and
dollar value and uncompetitive
government influenced costs and charges and to increase real cattle prices, reduce beef
industry costs, bring about beef industry organisational restructure , decentralisation
and rural infrastructure investment and access to long term patient development
finance, to enable Australian farmers to take advantage of the emerging Asian
Food Bowl opportunities.
In 2010 the rural press described the United Beef Group Beef’s New
Direction Strategic Plan as naïve.
Since that time however, the nation has caught up with the Graeme Acton
and the Beef’s New Direction Strategic Plan vision, with the recognition that,
as the mining boom slows down, Australia’s economy becomes more dependent upon
agricultural and manufacturing exports. A central focus of Federal Treasurer
Joe Hockey’s budget speech last night was the somewhat belated recognition of the
need to stimulate the rest of Australia’s economy as the mining boom slowed. As
the sub-headline in today’s Financial Review states, ´The government will rely on major infrastructure projects as the
mining boom fades.”
In recent years the Reserve Bank of Australia has actively moved to
reduce Australian interest rates and put downward pressure on the value of the
Australian dollar. The Australian government has put increasing priority on finalising
free trade agreements with Asia, and there is a bill before Federal Parliament
for the provision of rural reconstruction and development finance. Tony Abbott is
committed to the provision of infrastructure, describing himself as the
infrastructure Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the
National Party, Warren Truss, deliberately chose to retain the infrastructure
portfolio in the new government. The Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce,
has initiated a Senate inquiry into the grass fed levy funded structures and
systems and has induced the government to take a more concerted approach on
foreign acquisition of Australia’s prime rural land in order to preserve
Australia’s food security interests.
One cannot help but think that the beef industry, rural Australia and
the national economy would be much better off today if the Government and our
rural industry bodies had responded to Graeme’s and the Beef’s New Direction
Strategic Plan 2010 reform calls at the time rather than leaving it to the last year or so to
react.
Following the successful Paradise Lagoons United Beef Group forum in
July 2010 which was attended by over 500 of Queensland and Northern Territory’s largest cattle producers, Graeme, along with
JR McDonald of Bindaree Beef, Cameron McIntyre, Ashley MacKay and other members
of the United Beef Group, helped convene the Australian Meat Producers Group
(AMPG) which was a think tank made up of some of Australia’s largest and most
influential cattle producers and representatives of some of Australia’s largest
meat processors and feedlot operators as well as prominent stock and station
agents and rural industry advocates.
Graeme helped convene and chaired one of the AMPG’s earliest meetings in
Brisbane in 2011 attended by Cameron McIntyre, Ashley Mackay, Josie Angus, JR
McDonald, myself and others. Later that year Graeme and Cameron McIntyre co-chaired
an AMPG meeting with representatives of the Cattle Council (the CCA) in
Brisbane to consider beef industry organisational reform options. I can recall
that current CCA president Andrew Ogilvie, CCA director Peter Hall,
immediate CCA past president Greg Brown,
then CCA CEO Doug Inall and current CCA
CEO Jed Metz represented the Cattle Council, while AMPG members and invitees
included amongst others, meeting
facilitator Alastair Henderson, John
Berry from Swifts, Tony McCormack from Stanbroke, JR McDonald from Bindaree,
Michael Spencer from AAco, Tony Gooden from Elders, Paul Holmes a Court from
Heytesbury Holdings, and central Queensland
cattle producers Ashley Mackay and Ian McCamley.
As a member of the AMPG I later had the honour of travelling down to
Canberra to meet with Graeme, his mate Cameron McIntyre, Tony McCormack from
Stanbroke and John Berry from Swifts to discuss beef industry organizational
reform issues with Federal politicians. I recall a pre-meeting conference where
Graeme raised the question of declining State Farm Organization (SFO) membership
and funding which he felt was seriously undermining the ability of rural
advocacy groups to adequately represent the rural constituencies. Graeme looked
at me and asked what steps could be taken to obtain some levy funds to help
finance rural advocacy. I remember replying negatively, pointing out the
conventional dogma that governments generally do not agree to the levy funds
being utilized to fund advocacy groups to lobby politicians. I can still recall
Graeme’s gruff response, “Hunt, you’re
meant to be the bloody adviser. Don’t tell us what we can’t do, tell us what we
bloody well can do.”
Graeme’s gruff response was typical of his determined and positive attitude
and as luck would have it, during the day one of the then Agriculture Minister
Senator Ludwig’s advisors, Michael Carey, pointed us in the direction of the
Australian pork industry organizational model under which pork industry
advocacy, marketing and R&D functions are carried out under one roof by
levy funded Australian Pork Limited whose directors are elected by levy payers.
Graeme, Cameron McIntyre, Tony McCormack and I subsequently met with
Brian Ramsay the former CEO and founder of Australian Pork Limited to discuss
the pros and cons of the Australian pork industry organisational model and
later the AMPG think tank published submissions suggesting that the Australian
beef industry organization be restructured to provide for a combined advocacy
marketing and R&D levy funded cattle producer Corporation whose directors
were directly elected by levy payers.
My next mental snapshot of meeting with Graeme was at the 2012 MLA
conference at Longreach and a visit with him and other members of the AMPG to
the Longreach Stockman’s Hall of Fame, which was one of Graeme’s passions, and
follow-up AMPG meetings to discuss industry issues and meetings by various AMPG
members with the Cattle Council, Sheep Council and ABA members to discuss
reform options.
I can also recall meeting with Graeme and Cameron McIntyre for lunch in
the dining room of the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney and receiving and accepting a
telephone invitation to meet with him and his wife Jennie at the chairman’s
lounge at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney to discuss beef industry organisational
reform.
Early this year Graeme joined with me and other members of the AMPG
think tank and Queensland members of the concerned cattle producers (CCP) to
prepare a submission for the Senate Committee Inquiry into grass fed cattle
levy structures and systems that had been convened at Federal Agriculture
Minister Barnaby Joyce’s instigation. Graeme donated a full page Ad in the
Queensland Country Life to draw cattle producers’ attention to that inquiry
urging them to either put in their own submission, or join in with the CCP submission,
or lodge a CCP electronic questionnaire submission.
The AMPG/CCP submission to the Federal Senate Committee Inquiry into
grass fed cattle levy structures and systems drew upon the just released
Australian Farm Institute report into the declining effectiveness of
Australia’s rural advocacy groups as a consequence of falling membership and
resulting loss of funding. The Australian Farm Institute report examines a
number of rural advocacy group structure alternatives including overseas models
that combined levy funded marketing, R & D and policy development functions
with membership fee and membership service income funded advocacy.
Finally, the SFOs are coming to grips with the structural funding and representative problems facing SFO
based rural advocacy groups that Graeme had identified so precisely some four
years previously.
To go full circle, my last meeting with Graeme was at the Global Food
Bowl conference convened by Visy Board, The Australian newspaper and the Wall
Street Journal earlier this year where Graeme and fellow cattle baron Peter
Hughes were guest speakers. Graeme spoke about the Food Bowl opportunities for
Australian agriculture and the need for government to provide the necessary
infrastructure and access to development finance to allow Australian farmers to
grasp those opportunities, with the same passion and vigour as he had at the
Paradise Lagoons forum in 2010.
During a break in the conference Graeme greeted me with his
characteristic warm grin and we chatted for a few minutes about Professor
Julian Cribbs address on the Asian Food Bowl opportunities and food security
issues at the Paradise Lagoons forum and the current Senate Committee inquiry
into grass fed cattle levy structures and systems.
To sum up, my perception of Graeme was that he was a perceptive
reformist visionary who looked forward rather than back and was often ahead of
his colleagues, waiting for them to catch up. Graeme was interested in ideas
and outcomes, did not play the man and respected the institutions and people
that he was trying to reform, as well as his fellow reformists.
Graeme was a man in full, larger-than-life and will be remembered long
by those who had the privilege of knowing him. Those of us who remain owe it to
Graeme to do our best to ensure that the industry reforms that he was calling
for are implemented. The achievement of those much-needed industry reforms
would be the best legacy, the best memorial, to Graeme that we could leave for
the next generation.
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