AUSTRALIA’s peak wool grower body has hit back at Australian Wool Innovation’s (AWI) attempts to cut costs by reducing its director elections and accused the organisation of misleading growers on where its money is being spent.
In response to calls by AWI to change the annual director elections to every two years, WoolProducers president Don Hamblin said doubling the terms for directors from three years to a possible six, was no way to save money and lessen the politics of elections.
"Transparency and accountability to shareholders is not the place to cut corners," Mr Hamblin said.
As AWI shareholders get set to vote at its annual general meeting in Sydney on November 27 on the change, a flurry of words has ignited in the wool industry over the move.
In his response to the proposal, which must earn approval by 75 per cent of AWI shareholders to get up, Mr Hamblin hit out at AWI, accusing the board of failing to inform its shareholders of how money is being spent.
"The AWI board cannot seriously expect growers to double the length of their contract, while not even knowing how much we are paying them," he said.
In this year’s annual report collective director salaries were reported to have risen from $622,000 to $765,000 in the past 12 months.
A breakdown of salaries between the directors was not reported this year unlike previous years, however AWI maintained that "AWI board fees had not increased since 2006/07", citing the increase as due to the prior board of 10 directors.
Mr Hamblin also criticised AWI’s intention to make a 100pc increase in director terms, at a time when it was "struggling" to "enthuse woolgrowers to vote and WoolPoll" and on the back of a negative performance review by Arche consulting.
But this week AWI chairman Wal Merriman stood behind the election proposal, saying it was "a way to move forward and to limit the disruption to the operations of the company" and "significantly reduces" election costs.
"Reducing the frequency of elections enables the AWI board to retain the corporate memory of its directors, provide a more stable leadership and better long range planning process," Mr Merriman told Rural Press.
But when Rural Press questioned the dollar value of reducing elections, AWI was unable to do so.
A spokesperson explained it was "impossible" to separate specific costs associated with the annual general meeting and what was allocated to its election.
Queensland farm group AgForce this week also moved for growers to reject AWI’s election proposal for fear of losing "transparency in governance" at AWI.
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