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Putting the National Back in to the National Farmers Federation

Friday, 16th June, 2006

Agri-businessman David Crombie took over this morning as chairman of the so-called National Farmers Federation and his major task will be to make the body national in fact as well as in name.

The organisation whose leadership he inherits from the outgoing cotton-grower Peter Corish is really nothing more than a body representing the farmers of New South Wales , Victoria and Tasmania . The state farmer's federations of Western Australia , South Australia and Queensland are no longer even members.

Because of the word national in its title, the NFF still has an influence in a Canberra where politicians and public servants find it easier to deal with representative industry bodies than to find out what real participants in an industry think. This was nowhere more evident than when Mr Corish sold out the views of an overwhelming majority of Australian farmers by having the NFF eventually support the sale of the remaining Government shares in Telstra. That decision might have made it easier for the National Party to pretend it was heeding the views of its rural constituents but it severely decreased the chances of rebuilding a truly national organisation of farmers.

One result of the departure of the three state federations was a $600,000 a year drop in the NFF's income and with that has come a difficulty in keeping good staff and attracting replacements.

The scuttlebutt in Canberra , incidentally, is that Mr Corish will be endorsed by the Nationals to replace former party leader John Anderson in the seat of Gwydir.