ACT Gets It Wrong - Again

Wool Board chairman Bruce Munro says the latest press release by ACT leaves him flabbergasted at the campaign of lies and innuendo being directed at the Wool Board by ACT spokesman Owen Jennings.

In a press release issued by ACT today Jennings claims the Board “plans to keep hold of over $100 million of farmers’ levy reserves in a bid to protect itself from the Government’s producer board reforms.”

“This is arrant nonsense,” says Bruce Munro. “The Board has clearly and publicly committed to preserving grower reserves, which the Wool Board Act makes very clear ‘belong ultimately to wool growers.’ The Board agrees entirely.

“We also agree that control of those reserves must be vested in farmers. That is precisely what the Board proposes. If Mr Jennings only took the time to check the facts rather than yet again shoot from the hip, he may stand a better chance of gaining the ear of farmers he so desperately craves.”

Mr Munro says the Board has just completed a series of 40 meetings, consulting with growers throughout the country. “Thirteen hundred growers, from Northland to Southland, attended these meetings. This represented double the attendance of last year.

“At these meetings, the Board set out very clearly its operating strategies, financial position and reserves management policy.

“With the exception of one meeting, where a campaign was orchestrated against the Board, these policies were solidly endorsed.”

Mr Munro says politicians who conduct campaigns of denigration for self-serving purposes will gain few credits with the farming community.

ENDS

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