Dairy farmers believe more heads may roll when Murray Goulburn appears before the Federal Court to answer charges it broke Australian consumer law by misleading its farmer suppliers.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said on Friday it has filed proceedings against Murray Goulburn, its former managing director Gary Helou and former chief financial officer Bradley Hingle.
“What they did was, in my view, inexcusable and to say they didn’t know never cut the mustard with me,” Whorouly dairy farmer Rod Newton said.
“The board signed off on everything that Helau did.
“Their job is to make sure the company is on a sound footing and for me they’ve been as culpable in this as anyone.”
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said many farmers were were entitled to expect Murray Goulburn to have a reasonable basis for determining its pricing, and to regularly update farmers if there was any change in forecast prices.
The ACCC said it was seeking orders against Murray Goulburn that included declarations, compliance program orders, corrective notices and costs.
The ACCC said it had also decided not to seek a pecuniary penalty against Murray Goulburn because, as a co-operative, any penalty imposed could directly impact on the affected farmers.
But the competition watch-dog is seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties, disqualification orders and costs against Mr Helou and Mr Hingle.
Interim Australian Dairy Farmers chief executive John McQueen said price transparency and unfair/unconscionable contract terms and conditions had been a high priority for ADF for more than 15 years.
He said it was pleasing to see some significant recognition that dairy farmers needed to be treated much more fairly than they have been in the past.
Veteran Edi Upper dairy farmer Robert Cook was relieved the co-op would not be financially penalised.
“Fortunately they’re not looking at the co-op, at this stage,” Mr Cook said.
“I’m not saying at this stage Murray Goulburn is going to get out of it scott-free, I hope they do, because I’m a pretty strong co-op man in light of what Murray Goulburn does for its communities.
“All the people who are employed, it’s not just us farmers, all those employees have got to be thinking about what’s going on as well.”
Murray Goulburn said in a statement on Friday it was “considering the proceedings”.
