All Breeds sale go ahead a ray of light

BY TIM HOWARD

A ray of hope has burst through the gloom over the future over Casino’s Northern Rivers Livestock Exchange, with news a deal has been reached to hold the All Breeds Sale later this month.

The sale, a major event in the town’s calendar on the fourth Saturday of July for the past 24 years, was under threat because auctioneers have refused to sign new contract with Richmond Valley Council gain a permit to operate from the NRLX.

But on Saturday the council announced it would will issue a one-off operating licence to allow the Casino All Breeds Bull and Female Sale to go ahead at the NRLX on Saturday July 29.

Casino All Breeds Committee president Bruce Lyle was pleased the council had relented for all

“This is a good news story for the community,” he said. It might take a bit of the angst and heat out of the situation for both parties.”

But he wanted to stay away from commenting on the dispute other than to say this All Breeds go ahead showed him both parties did have the community’s interest at heart.

Casino Auctioneers Association president Andrew Summerville agreed, but warned not to read too much into it.

Last week the association revealed it would hold a sale at the Lismore saleyards on Wednesday.

Mr Summerville said the agents refused to sign a contract with the council that would give them a permit to sell cattle at the NRLX for three years, after they went through an expression of interest process.

The previous agents’ permits to operate at the NRLX expired on June 30.

The new contract changed the fee structures, including a switch in the yard fee from a per head charge to 0.2% of gross revenue charge.

The council has also fagged it would take over handling cattle from the fall of the hammer, an area the agents have traditionally handled.

Mr Summerville said the new fees were based on council having an unrealistic assessment of the industry.

“We’re coming off the two best years we’ve ever seen as agents,” he said. “There’s no denying that.

“We’re all realists. We don’t live in a world where we think weaners are going to average $2000 for the next 20 years. We know that’s not the case.

“Given the market we’re in now, which is a lot closer to a realistic one, than the one we have seen, I think it proves the fact the honeymoon is over in the cattle industry.”

He said people in the industry would now be watching their pennies, including the agents.

“We’ve got to survive, our producers have got to survive and the council has got to survive, that’s what it comes down to,” he said.

He said he could understand the council getting excited at the cattle numbers going through the NRLX,

“They’ve defnitely been looking at the throughput numbers, which have looked amazing, but it’s not a realistic number based on the cattle industry as we know it,” he said.

“I don’t blame them for seeing the throughput that’s gone through and saying we want a bit more out of it.

“Where we are at, at the moment – I hope it’s an over correction in the cattle market – is not a real good spot for anyone.”

Mr Summerville said the council’s assertion the agents were not doing a good job handling the cattle post sale was “disappointing”.

“I feel like the people on the whole – and especially over the last 12-18 months – I feel like they’ve been doing a good job and I’m happy with the staff we’ve had,” he said.

“I think its been an unfair comment.

“When you’re dealing with cattle there’s always going to be issues, whether its Casino Agents Association delivering the cattle or NRLX, there’ always going to be issues.

“The key to any business is to minimise them. That’s essentially what we’re trying to achieve, minimise the issues and have people we’re happy with handling the livestock.”

Mr Summerville described the decision to take this week’s cattle sale to Lismore as “a stopgap”.

“We want to be selling in Casino, it’s built well and ready to handle the cattle we’ve been able put through it,” he said.

“The standoff between agents and council has to be resolved.”

But he does not see the the council allowing the All Breeds sale to go ahead as anything but a one-off decision.

“It’s a good result. It would be very disappointing if it wasn’t to go ahead in Casino,” he said.

“It’s a community sale, It brings a lot of people into the area. Casino is the place to have it.

“I’m pleased we’re allowed to have the All Breeds sale. It’s a good result and I’m thankful that the council and councillors could recognise that fact it needs to be in Casino and differences had to be put aside to have it.”

But he would not use it as leverage in the current dispute.

“That’s not the game we’re playing,” he said. “We’re not about saying you’ve done that and we’ve done this.

“At the end of the day we’re trying to get the best outcome for our vendors.

“They’re the people who are going to be affected. They’re the people who support us week in, week out and unfortunately they’re the people who the most minimal amount of say on the whole saleyards,”

But an interview aired on ABC Radio on Monday with agents association member Darren Perkins, the manager director of George & Furhrman Casino, fagged there were many more concerns than the new fees.

“We have at least 60 or 65 of the schedules and clauses that we don’t agree or want discussion with,” Mr Perkins said.

“At this stage we’re not going to do anything until we can all get together and go through this.

“There have been a number of communications, but it has not come to prevail and we will not be signing this agreement.

“As have all the agents that sell at NRLX until this is sorted.”

Mr Perkins said on the issue of council taking on stock handling it was a matter of cost and value for money.

“Their charges amount to a cost of $8.80 with inexperienced staff taking delivery of the livestock,” he said.

“We can do it for $4.60 to $4.80 a head with a lot of experienced people, particularly when it comes to some of these agencies which have been in the Casino district for 111 years.”

Mr Perkins said the fee issues were there, but said the problems went much deeper.

“It’s unsignable,” he said of the contract the council has offered agents.

He said the problems began when the council went to agents with an expression of interest for the frst time in the history of saleyard operations.

“They were going to get seven new agents,” he said. “That’s fne, I don’t have any problem with competition.

“We get to the closing time. We’ve allegedly got fve that went in the

EOI process.

“Out of the fve, one of the agents that’s been there for 14 years is basically told that their EOI was unsuccessful.

“We get to July 1 and we fnd that there’s no agents signed. What would that tell you out there?

How good is this agreement?

“If this agreement is so great and so industrylevel, where has anyone come to sign this.

“That basically tells me that it’s unachievable and no-one should sign it.”

M Perkins did not go into detail on the specifcs of the issues in the contract, but said they amounted to council telling agents how to run their businesses. And he said it posed a threat to the stock and station agency business model.

“We have been training lots of people to come out and be a high standard for stock and station agents,” he said.

“This here is so detrimental to that it could cease youngsters coming through.”

He said agents provided a full suite of services to cattle growers right through the process of selling their cattle.

“The council want to take that away from us,” Mr Perkins said. “Basically they want to control our businesses and that’s not going to happen.”

Neither RVC or the agents have given any sign of backing down. The council did not comment further on the impasse, so its statement that a “fair and reasonable offer” was on the table must still stand and until the offer was signed there would not be sales at the NRLX.

“That’s correct,” Mr Perkins said. “We don’t fnd it fair and reasonable and there will not be sales at the NRLX.

He said the agents had decided to hold a sale at Lismore on Wednesday this week to help vendors at the start of the fnancial year.

He also said local cattle had already been taken to sales at Lismore, Warwick and Inverell since the standoff with council became public.

“At this stage Lismore and the Casino Agents Association will be selling there,” he said.

Mr Perkins said the continued dispute would have wider affects with businesses in the Casino CBD, but warned the agents would not back down.

“This is very toxic,” he said “We want intervention from outside sources to get this right.

“The council is saying they’re not backing down. And we, as agents, aren’t going to sign the agreement and we’re not going to back down.

“And if we have to, we will send cattle and keep sending them to other centres, even if this takes until Christmas.”

Mr Perkins said the council was well aware of the issues the agents had with the contract.

“We sent them an email in the last couple of days with 62 to 65 things we want to be discussed,” he said.

“We’re not going to let the council tell us how to run our businesses, that’s what it comes down to.” He dispute claims agents should pay more, but he said statements that agents collected 4.5% to 5.5% commission were incorrect.

“Livestock agents guarantee payment to their vendors regardless of whether they pay or not,” he said.

Mr Summerville said vendors and people in the community were also supporting the agents’ stand.

“The vendors do seem to be right on side with us,” he said. “They realise that any increase in fees is essentially going to result in higher selling costs.

“We’ve had plenty of calls of support.

Essentially at end of the day the whole lockout is for the vendors, because, the long and the short of it is, they’re the ones it will effect the most.”