Does rolling advocacy into R&D bodies pull ag's punches?

Both commodities are considering creating single industry bodies by rolling their advocacy groups into their levy and taxpayer-funded research and development organisations.

APL replaced three bodies - the Australian Pork Corporation, the Pig Research and Development Corporation, and the Pork Council of Australia - in May 2000.

Andrew Spencer, who stepped down from his 14-year tenure as APL chief executive in July, said strategic policy development was only one of its roles.

"That's not really a good description for the extra responsibilities that we had, which was actually industry representation and it included advocacy," he said.

"But, as with all of the research and development corporations, you'd have a specific clause banning us from participating in any agri-political activities.

"If you have a close look at the document, though, it doesn't really tell you what agri-political activities are.

"It tells you what is not an agri-political activity and that's I think the crux of some of the arguments that are getting around at the moment: what is an agri-political activity?"

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One agriculture minister left Mr Spencer with the impression he didn't like the single advocacy and research body model.

"He said two things about it, which from a purist point of view, is probably true," Mr Spencer said.

"Firstly, we were a compulsory lobby organisation so people who paid levies were in effect members, and that shouldn't happen.

"The second one was, as a lobbying organisation with access to government money, that's a no-no, you should not have those sort of connections.

"Now, from a purist point of view, both of those have some merit."

Mr Spencer said the greatest impact of avoiding 'agri-political activity' was on policy development.

"Policy research is something that I believe all research and development corporations should be participating in," he said.

"They should be directed or helped decide what the key issues for research are through their representative bodies."

The research findings would be used in policy development by the industry, he said, that could then be put to lawmakers.

"If all fails then, if you have the ability, you go to the political activities," he said.

"Instead of making a representation to a regulator or a politician, you're making a representation almost to a voter about who's right and who's wrong in the political process.

"That's something we couldn't do.

"There's an argument, I think, that in the 21st century, if you have to get to that point, you've sort of lost the argument a little bit anyway.

"And that's why I think the APL model worked.

"We took it as our challenge to use strong evidence bases to get good national interest policies for our industry."

Asked by Making Our Voices Heard facilitator Mick Keogh whether APL sometimes felt it had to "pull its punches", Mr Spencer agreed but said perspective mattered.

"There are moments in the life of a CEO for an industry representative body, where you face the choice of doing what you really believe is right for the industry long-term, or doing what you think is actually the easiest way to get through the next week," Mr Spencer said.

"And to my pride, APL always went the formal way, and it put us in a lot of short-term strife but I think it's put the industry in a lot of positive positions now."

Australian Live Export Council chair Simon Crean said the notion that any taxpayer funding should preclude agri-political activity deserved to be challenged.

"If you have undertaken the research, if you have undertaken the strategic direction, why shouldn't you be able to advocate in a bipartisan sense for what is sound policy?" Mr Crean said.

"I don't accept that the model that should be pursued in that direction is giving more strength to the RDC because a lot of the issues that happen within the industry are the tension between the RDC and the membership body.

"I would like to see the amalgamation model and what Andrew [Spencer] has talked about, I think is an interesting question, but it denies them the ability to involve in agri political."

He said it made sense to create a firewall between the money allocated for R&D and advocacy.

"If it's the levy system that's going to be the barrier to fund the agri political, why not question the fundamental issue?" Mr Crean said.

"It's members' money; through properly structured organisations, they should be able to allocate it and, only in relation to R&D where there's matching [funding] should there be something of a barrier around it, but there should be anyway.

"The R&D money should be for establishing the ... evidence base because that's what you've got to base your advocacy on.

"I think the most important point I would make is if you're going to advocate, advocate on the facts and don't be frightened of the facts, don't just do it out of rhetoric or assertion ... organisations need to face up to what constitutes agri-political."

On the other hand, National Farmers' Federation (NFF) president Fiona Simson said focusing on structure before strategy could backfire.

"It's all very well to focus on structure ... but you sometimes tend to do that at the expense of trust, of people taking responsibility and the expense of people knowing where they're going," Ms Simson said.

"The first thing that we needed to do ... was focus on what our role was, why was the NFF established, what is our purpose, why are we meant to be here and what are we doing?

"Then we could actually work out some of the issues we should be looking at.

"Where we used to have 13 committees, we focused it down to six... we were able to engage our members in the discussions about those things."