Finance

NO THANKS: Ramsay’s failed VFF presidency angers members across Victoria

Our report on VFF President Simon Ramsay’s reign of error yesterday provoked strong reaction from Ramsay critics and backers alike.

But the critics will not be silenced with damning accounts of Ramsay’s misadventures flooding into the VEXNEWS bunker.

BULLIES BELT BAIRNSDALE
VFF insiders in Gippsland have told us about the high-handed and undemocratic activities of Ramsay and paid VFF goons in attempting to takeover the Bairnsdale branch of the federation.

At its most recent Annual General Meeting, Ramsay and publicity officer Brendan Rowswell allegedly attended without invitation and imposed themselves on the meeting in a style one would associate with a CFMEU delegates’ meeting or a staff gathering at the office of Senator Bill Heffernan.

Ramsay’s office had refused to supply the branch executive with a copy of the branch membership list, in breach of federation rules and had embarked on a course calculated to shut down dissent at the notoriously troublesome branch.

HIGH-HANDED
What followed was something of a debacle as Ramsay chaired the meeting, called votes in what observers say was a highly controversial fashion and refused requests from members to “conduct a division” for the orderly counting of votes rather than merely rely on his own count of hands.

It was a breach of even the most basic of common law meeting procedure. And it left members steaming with rage that Ramsay was conducting himself in such a thuggish way.

Rebel members produced legal opinions indicating that Ramsay was acting in breach of the rules and other legal obligations, but he ignored it.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
VFF insiders tell VEXNEWS he also barreled ahead with plans to install as branch president, a public servant in the employ of the Department of Sustainability and Environment even though members were gravely concerned that a serious conflict of interests could arise between his duties to the VFF and to the government department.

Ramsay was desperate to get his bloke elected, regardless of the procedural messiness. He wouldn’t be around to deal with any scandal. His term expires soon and he’s moving on.

VFF insiders say this is typical of the VFF office’s approach to the branches.

Ramsay is quick to blame the VFF’s crisis on everything other his own performance and dictatorial approach:

“Drops in membership have been caused by the drought, farm consolidation and, most recently, dips in commodity prices due to the Global Financial Crisis.”

We suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that people are not joining organisations in the way they used to. Every political party, community group and trade union has dealt with the same challenge. One VFF insider told us:

“We can’t rebuild in the post-Ramsay era by repeating his mistakes. The new leadership needs to be open to new ideas and willing to create an organisation that listens to its members and stops blaming country people for not joining and starts asking why they aren’t.”

Yesterday’s profile piece in The Age where he explained his “biggest break” was “being elected as president of the Victorian Farmers’ Federation” because “it’s opened up so many doors and given me a better understanding of the intricacies of politics and agriculture” is the final insult for some members.

Another wrote to VEXNEWS today:

Our input refused, at meetings abused and left feeling used by just another ambitious politician who’s hoping to make a convenient escape to Canberra and leave us to clean up a God-awful mess. Thanks Simon. For nothing.

© 2009 VEXNEWS 2010©.