Tuesday, 13 November 2018 09:55

Voting process needs better transparency

Written by 
Federated Farmers Waikato president Andrew McGiven. Federated Farmers Waikato president Andrew McGiven.

Fonterra's director election process needs better transparency, says Federated Farmers Waikato president Andrew McGiven.

Expressing surprise that the co-op only elected two directors last week to fill three board vacancies, McGiven says shareholders are demanding clarification.

“There is still a lot of conjecture around this, hence the dissatisfaction among shareholders who nominated the two outside candidates,” he says.

“I think the farmer message to the board is that they are accountable to us as shareholders.  

I don’t know why the other two board nominees were not elected, but I think there is a clear message to the board – and to a certain extent senior management – that they aren’t greater than Fonterra itself, and in the end are accountable to us as shareholders and suppliers.”

McGiven says South Canterbury farmer Leonie Guiney’s message “very much centred around this fact”.  

Five candidates contested the board elections; the board backed three candidates through the independent nomination process– sitting director Ashley Waugh and new candidates Peter McBride and Jamie Tuuta.

Among these three candidates, only McBride achieved the 50% ‘yes’ vote threshold.

Guiney and Canterbury farmer John Nicholls self nominated for the election.

Guiney, who was successful, says she is thrilled to be back on the board; she served a three-year term that ended in 2017.

Guiney and McBride took up their board seats at the co-op’s annual general meeting in Lichfield.

The Shareholders Council says another election will be held to elect the third director.

McGiven says farmers are surprised that only two directors were elected and a third one didn’t make the 50% threshold. 

But he stopped short of calling for a review of the election process.

“Personally I don’t think the process needs a review and I like the fact that the independent selection panel takes the ‘beauty factor’ out of the mix, but this process needs better transparency and clarification to the shareholders.

“While it appears that [new CEO] Miles Hurrell has identified some of these concerns and started making changes to strategy, the board needs to realise that the culture that it should be setting has evolved away from the values that we as farmers expect from our co-op and [it] has disenfranchised a lot of us as a result.” - Sudesh Kissun

More like this

Farmers' call

OPINION: Fonterra's $4.22 billion consumer business sale to Lactalis is ruffling a few feathers outside the dairy industry.

Wasted energy

OPINION: Finance Minister Nicola Willis could have saved her staff and MBIE time and effort over ‘buttergate’ recently by not playing politics with butter prices in the first place.

Featured

Dr Mike Joy says sorry, escapes censure

Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.

People-first philosophy pays off

The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.

Farmer anger over Joy's social media post

A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.

From Nelson to Dairy Research: Amy Toughey’s Journey

Driven by a lifelong passion for animals, Amy Toughey's journey from juggling three jobs with full-time study to working on cutting-edge dairy research trials shows what happens when hard work meets opportunity - and she's only just getting started.

National

Machinery & Products

JDLink Boost for NZ farms

Connectivity is widely recognised as one of the biggest challenges facing farmers, but it is now being overcome through the…

New generation Defender HD11

The all-new 2026 Can-Am Defender HD11 looks likely to raise the bar in the highly competitive side-by-side category.

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Buttery prize

OPINION: Westland Milk may have won the contract to supply butter to Costco NZ but Open Country Dairy is having…

Gene Bill rumours

OPINION: The Gene Technology Bill has divided the farming community with strong arguments on both the pros and cons of…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter