A record 10,764 Meat & Livestock Australia members gained their full voting entitlement for this year’s annual general meeting, representing about 24 percent of MLA’s total register of 47,556 beef, sheepmeat and goatmeat producer members.

There was an unusually large vote component registered from the floor this year, with about 200 members voting in person. Even removing about 40-odd members of State Farming Organisations who were ‘obliged’ to attend the meeting, that still left about 160 MLA members voting from the floor at the Longreach Civic Centre.

Apart from the motion to wind-up the producer company put by the ABA (see separate story “Members Give MLA overwhelming mandate”), three new selection-committee nominated directors were approved by members:

• 82.65pc of votes cast were in favour of the election of Michele Allan, an experienced corporate board member, who was chosen for her skills in corporate governance. Her long and impressive board CV came under scrutiny of some MLA members, who asked Ms Allan how she would find time to do her MLA board responsibilities justice. Her appointment replaces Peter Boyden, who has retired 
• 89.69pc of votes cast were in favour of the election of Geoff Maynard, as the northern beef producer member. Some members pointed out that following the departure of Mr Heatley as chairman, Mr Maynard, whose property is located  100km south of Rockhampton, is the only producer representative for the northern Australia region, representing at least 60pc of the national beef herd.
• 85.35pc of members voted in favour of the election of Rodney Watt as sheepmeats representative, replacing Grant Burbidge. Mr Watt is the third MLA boardmember from the seedstock industry now sitting on the board, joining Geoff Maynard and Lucinda Corrigan.

MLA members voted to elect three new producer members to the MLA Selection committee.

Almost 91.2pc of cattle producer members were in favour of electing Ian McCamley to the  committee; 92pc of sheep producer members supported Ben Hooper; and 96.65pc of votes cast by MLA lotfeeder members favoured electing Warren Barnett, from Associated feedlot near Mathoura, NSW to the committee.

With 124 candidates nominating for the three available MLA board positions this year, some members questioned why there was not a broader selection process open to members, rather than simply ‘endorsing’ the three candidates put forward by the board selection committee.