Annual General Meeting - 2020

There are two items for resolution under this agenda item:

• whether the meeting should be postponed to 12 January 2021
• appointment of a Chair for the meeting

Membership

Revenue

The main feature of the financial accounts for 2019-20 relates to the decision taken by the Board of Directors to set membership fees to $0 for membership renewals. Consequently, membership revenue only came from new memberships during the year. The decision was taken in recognition that memberships had only opened in the second half of the financial year.

The effect on the financial accounts was that membership revenue was only $3,181 in 2019-20, compared with $7,436 in 2018-19. Membership fees so far in 2020-21 are $9,518.

Expense

Significant expenses in 2019-20 were:

• insurance costs of $2,870, of which around $700 was in respect of backdating liability coverage to OIA Ltd's original date of commencement
• payment for legal advice of $1,882 in respect of the proposed merger with OFA
• advertising costs of $1,595 were mostly in respect of maintaining the membership mailing list through Mailchimp
• annual costs of company registration of $1,350
• there was a $227 fee for registration of the trademark "Voice of Australia's organic industries"
• website hosting and security costs of $843

The Chair of the Board delivered a verbal report to the meeting, covering the following key points.

• The last 12 months has been difficult for everyone, initially with the drought and the bushfires across the nation, and then with the pandemic over most of this year. It hasn’t been a great year to be progressing peak body issues.
• Our industry has been too focused on their own businesses and Government has been also been internally focused. But we have still achieved a great deal.
  • We have regular meetings with the Government and work particularly well with the Department.
  • We have been lobbying the Government over improved accountability and transparency arrangements for industry regulation.
  • In January we had our trademark registered – “Voice of Australia’s organic industries”.
  • We played a significant role in lobbying against the deregulation of gene technology in the second half of 2019.
  • We made a submission to the Australian Government’s review of Research and Development Corporation system.
  • We lobbied the Government to allow working holiday visa holders to be recognized for volunteer work on organic and biodynamic farms.
  • We supported an Australian-led Oceania bid to host the 2023 Organic World Congress in Brisbane.
    • This is now being refined to rebid for the deferred 2024 World Congress.
  • Just in the last few days, we have launched a new website with a more contemporary feel to it.
    • We plan to add more features to the website that showcase our organic operators and their products.
    • We particularly want to highlight our Foundation members and encourage more of a financial contribution from members.
    • We also need to highlight our policy positions more clearly.
    • Any ideas would be welcome.

Nomination of directors

Nominations closed on 2 December. Seven nominations were received.

Nominations must be made and seconded by a financial full member of OIA Ltd—that is, they must be a certified organic operator and not have any membership fees outstanding. Directors do not need to be certified organic operators or members.

The candidates

Seven nominations for director were received by the Company Secretary.

The procedure for the election of directors

The AGM will first decide how many directors to appoint. The minimum is 7 and the maximum is 11.

There are currently 3 continuing directors. The remaining director positions will be declared vacant. No candidates will be accepted from the floor of the meeting.

If the number of candidates is less than or equal to the number of vacancies, then all candidates are duly elected as director.

If there are more candidates than the number of vacancies, the Chair will conduct a preferences based secret ballot, assisted by two scrutineers.

There being no motion to establish a Member Council, no election was conducted for Councillors.

Corporations law defines small companies limited by guarantee (CLBGs) as having less than $250k revenue.

Small CLBGs are not required to prepare financial accounts or appoint an auditor.

The Chair of the Board presented a verbal report on strategic planning, covering the following points.

We expect next year to be a huge year for advancing the interests of certified organic operators. There are two areas that we need to particularly focus on:

• our policy position on the regulation of production for both domestic and export markets
• having a financially sustainable organisation to provide the necessary support

Policy

We have been quietly lobbying government around several themes:

• we need consistency of regulation across domestic and export markets
• we need to lift the standard of regulation to improve the confidence of producers, consumers and export markets in Australia’s organic produce
  • we need to review domestic (including import) and export regulatory arrangements
  • we need to review the effectiveness and professionalism of how those regulatory arrangements are implemented
• the export arrangement orders have been rewritten as rules under new legislative arrangements commencing 1 July next year
  • this has largely been a technical exercise
• the Government still has to deal with the Deloitte report on regulatory arrangements
  • this has been parked while the export rules have been worked on
  • we expect this report to provide an opportunity to reform our industry

We expect to work with the Government next year on options to reform industry regulation:

• we are developing a process for this that will engage all organic operators in our industry
• this will likely involve information papers, online forums, surveys, and teleconference-based workshops
  • at the core of this is a conversation around the National Standard versus AS6000
  • we don’t want to rule out any options at present—we prefer to take a principles approach to selecting the best regulatory arrangements for the future
  • regardless of which standard, either standard will need significant investment to meet future needs
  • we need to consider world best practice—we have been too insular in the past

Above all else, we need to focus on the best interests of Australia’s current and future organic producers.

Organisation

We have an organisation which is now firmly established and which generates sufficient revenue to sustain volunteer-based activities.

We need strategies to lift revenues to sustain the hiring of a CEO and a policy capability. This is vital to ensure we are sustainable as a peak body.

And we need to find ways to fund the implementation of our export strategy.