THE Federal Court has finally handed down its decision on whether a rebel group of former Victorian Farmers Federation grains group presidents can force an extraordinary general meeting of the peak farming body.
And despite conditions for such a bid to be successfully being enshrined in the VFF constitution – and apparently met by the rebels – the court ruled in favour of the organisation.
Driven by former VFF grains group presidents Brett Hosking, Andrew Weidemann and Ashley Fraser, the EGM campaign was almost exclusively focused on removing current VFF president Emma Germano and vice-president Danyel Cucinotta.
They had collected 225 signatures, more than double the 100 required by the VFF to call the EGM.
But after months of argument, claims and counterclaims, it took Justice Jonathon Beach less than 20 seconds to throw out the bid.
“This matter was heard by me over two days, Mr Weidemann has failed in respect of all of his claims,” Justice Beach said. “The orders that I make are, one, the plaintiff’s originating application be dismissed. Two, the plaintiff pay the defendant’s costs,” he said.
The legal challenge against the farming body was led by plaintiff Mr Weidemann, a Rupanyup farmer as well as a former VFF grains group president.
The EGM request had been rejected twice by VFF president Germano, on the grounds the requests were invalid, which ended up with Mr Weidemann and his group upping the stakes and going after Ms Germano in the Federal Court.
The VFF successfully argued in court that there is no mechanism to remove its president and later released the following statement: “The VFF welcomes the Federal Court of Australia’s overwhelming vote of confidence in the VFF’s governance processes following the recent ruling to side with the organisation.
“After months of distractions and considerable resource allocations that have diverted attention away from the real matters concerning the vast majority of Victorian farmers, we now hope to be able to solely focus on standing up for farmers on the issues that matter most.
“Every member should have the right to consider the future of our organisation and participate meaningfully in the democratic principles of the VFF and that’s what we continue to do.
“As you know, the VFF is well-advanced on our path to renewal and setting up the organisation to ensure we are best placed to capitalise on the opportunities that await in the future. We look forward to continuing on this path and remain steadfast in delivering the renewal that the majority of VFF members asked us to do.”
