The Pastoralists and Graziers Association (PGA) of Western Australia has suspended operations after uncovering financial misconduct within the organisation.
On Thursday night, the agricultural lobby group put itself into voluntary suspension to address the issues.
It will pause the collection of membership fees and staff will be stood down in the short-term.
The PGA acknowledged there was a “financial deficit” but would not disclose the exact amount of money that was missing.
It said in a statement that executive and committee members had recently become aware of “serious financial misconduct within the organisation”.
President Tony Seabrook characterised the situation as “a hiccup”, but did not want to underplay the “very serious” process of discovery taking place.
“At this point in time it would be improper for me to start putting figures around that I can’t verify,” he told the WA Country Hour.
“We’ve got a lot of records to go back through and we are in the process of going back through those records.
“It goes back a very, very long time.”
Mr Seabrook said he did not want to imply that misconduct had taken place until the investigation was complete.
“We believe we’ve been let down, but there is not a single person that is a member of the association that is in any way involved in anything that’s happened here,” he said.
“The PGA will survive this.
“I’m telling you right now, [the organisation] is far, far from dead.”
John Hassell says WAFarmers will try to support PGA members. (ABC News: Evelyn Manfield)
WAFarmers ‘open’ to amalgamation
WAFarmers president John Hassell said he would “reach out an olive branch” and try to help to represent PGA members, but he was unsure whether that would lead to an amalgamation of the two lobby groups.
“We’re absolutely open to it — it’s not a nice situation [PGA members] find themselves in and I think people need to be represented and want to be represented to protect their business,” he said.
“I think if that eventuality arises, you know, they may not be in a position to amalgamate.
“It might just be that their membership might want to join us.
“I don’t know how it’s going to work.
“I think [the situation] is very unfortunate, but it really does point to the fact that these organisations are run by volunteers and money’s always tight and, you know, it’s a lot of hard work to balance the books.”
In a statement the PGA said it had engaged professional support to assist in efforts to correct the issue.
“While it cannot be assured of success within the necessary short time-frame [the PGA is] determined to preserve the history, reputation and ability of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association to continue to fight for agriculture,” the statement said.
