The nominations for the 2023 Cattle Australia Regional Consultative Committee (RCC) elections opened Monday 9 October 2023 and closed Wednesday 18 October 2023. Voting opens on Friday 27 October 2023.
The RCC will comprise fifteen directly-elected Cattle Australia members from the identified fifteen Sub-Regions and eight State Farming Organisation (SFO) representatives, appointed by their respective SFO, with a Board appointed Chair.
In this election, nominations were open for the 15 democratically elected RCC positions.
Nominations across the Sub-Regions were as follows:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
There is one position for this Sub-Region to be filled in this RCC election. The candidates for this Sub-Region are below in no particular order:
Nominated by: Marc Gubbins and Olivia Lawson
David’s family own and operate a beef and sheep property in the Western District of Victoria near Mortlake.
David and his family have been there for 117 years and his son Nick is now running the operation.
David went to Glenormiston Ag College and has also done a few extra courses over the years including an Holistic Management course and an RCS course.
David has been on the previous Policy Council for Cattle Australia and is currently the chair of the Sustainable Resilient Beef Systems working group.
David has very much enjoyed the challenge of developing policy in these fast-moving and dynamic times and is very pleased to be able to give something back to the industry.
David has a very good understanding of the issues surrounding sustainability, carbon and climate metrics involving beef systems.
Nominated by: Tom Gubbins and Brendan Tatham
John has been a past President of Cattle Council of Australia and the Victorian Farmers Federation.
He has been a Board member of AMLC, MLA and the NLIS.
John is seeking a position the RCC to represent his region and will represent the interests of the grass-fed cattle industry by making sure producer voices are heard at Cattle Australia.
Nominated by: Paul Saward and Denise Saward
Brian graduated from UNE in 1984 with an agriculture degree. He has been farming ever since then, working in beef production and cropping.
If elected, Brian is prepared to read and listen on all issues, provide thoughtful input, and will talk to many producers and listen to their views.
Nominated by: Brett Hall and John Bruce
Richard is a passionate and dedicated grass-fed beef producer. He is also part of Tasmania’s Red Meat Updates Committee.
He will represent the interests of grass-fed cattle producers if elected to the RCC by talking and listening to other producers in the industry.
Nominated by: Mick Hewitt and Tony Truelson
Ben grew up in the cattle industry and has since worked across multiple commercial operations, later taking on a leadership role in his family’s business. Ben is now a Director and Chief Executive of Agribusiness for Hewitt a vertically integrated grass-fed red meat supply chain.
In Ben’s current role, he oversees the production of grass-fed beef across three states with a focus on the organic supply chain. As a result of leading the Hewitt business Ben is exposed to and in regular contact with not only organic markets but all cattle markets. Additionally, being a director of a vertically integrated business gives Ben valuable insight into all segments of the red meat industry, information that allows for strategic decision making.
If elected, Ben’s goal is to ensure Region 11 members are well represented and their ideas and concerns raised within Cattle Australia. Sharing information back to Region 11 members from other areas of the country will also ensure Region 11 members are well informed on initiatives and development across the industry.
Nominated by: Nicole Hayes and Joanne Stanes
Ross is a fourth-generation pastoralist and his family have been in the central Australian region for over 100 years.
Ross is a Director of Lyndavale Cattle Co, a family-owned business that operates cattle stations across central Australia and some farm land in South Australia. Ross, with his family, produces heavy young Angus x Charolais steers for the organic EU market. Lyndavale Cattle Co have developed a high quality, productive and efficient sustainable beef business.
As an active community member in his Sub-Region, if elected, Ross will use his industry associations to consult members at the grass-roots level and broader community.
Nominated by: William Allen and Jeffrey Batt
Lachlan is 33 years old and is married to his wife Hannah, with two beautiful children Eleanor and Aubrey.
Lachlan is in a family partnership running a cattle property, along with working for Brodie Agencies as a stock agent.
Lachlan grew up in the Riverina of NSW, and from a young age grew a love of beef cattle through exposure with his grandpa on his mixed farming property. He jackaroo’d with AAco out of high school, studied agriculture science at Sydney Uni, worked for a corporate agriculture company for approx. five years and then moved to North West Qld to join his wife’s family’s cattle business.
Lachlan would like to contribute to the direction of the beef industry in his small way. Helping to shape the future of the industry for the current generation and even more so for future generations is very important to him.
Nominated by: Peter Hall and Blair Knuth
Lloyd has lived his entire life in Northwest Queensland, growing up on his family’s sheep and cattle property near Julia Creek and then later moving to his Thorntonia property northeast of Camooweal.
Lloyd has been active in local community and beef industry groups for many years, has a good network of contacts in the beef industry that he has gotten through his various roles and is very involved in his local community as well as the wider northwest Queensland area.
Lloyd’s business has properties in a number of areas of northwest Queensland, and he tries to support each area and be involved in the events and local activities whenever possible.
Lloyd sees the RCC as the ‘engine room’ of Cattle Australia. He feels it’s important for there to be grassroots producers as part of the team in the RCC to help establish policy for Cattle Australia. Lloyd has extensive experience with cattle industry organisations including
Cattle Council Australia and Agforce.
Nominated by: Michael Lyons and Roger Landersberg
Kate is a 4th generation beef producer. Her family own and manage a beef cattle property –
“Braceborough Station” Charters Towers.
Kate grew up there working alongside her parents who have owned and managed Braceborough for 34 years. She is still involved in Braceborough, helping her
parents with trading cattle and managing the property. Once Kate left school, she started working between the Dalrymple Sale Yards and Braceborough. At the sale yards is where she fell into Live Export.
Kate began working for different export companies and having different roles through the supply chain. The roles she had moved her to different export depots in Queensland and into a few in Darwin. Kate was very fortunate to get to experience all the supply chain here in Australia – Paddock to Port, however, she is still yet to travel on a ship or visit “the other end”.
In 2019, Kate was extremely lucky to be offered the position she is in currently, Logistics & Administration Manager at Reid River Export Depot. RRED is a
purpose-built livestock processing and holding facility for live export cattle, which completed its first shipment in 2019 and to date have processed and shipped almost 300,000 head overseas. In the last 12 months, RRED have become NFAS accredited and are now a registered feedlot. It is Kate’s roll to keep up to date and keep RRED compliant with industry and government regulations and standards.
Nominated by: Fred Hughes and Richard Hughes
Steve Burnett is 37 years old and a 4th generation cattle grazier in the Clermont District, Central Queensland.
Steve studied a Bachelor of Business Management, with a Double Major in Marketing at QUT in Brisbane, from 2004 – 2006. He ran his own freelance marketing and business development business for 2007 & 2008, then moved back to the home property Bendemeer in 2009.
Steve and his wife moved to Monteagle in early 2010, where they still currently reside.
Steve’s business produces cross-bred cattle for export and domestic slaughter. He aims to produce grass and crop finished bullocks for the Jap Ox market, as well as surplus slaughter heifers, that he traditionally sells to the Stanbroke Flinders Grass Fed program. Steve also fattens and finishes all preg-tested empty and cul for age cows for domestic slaughter.
Steve has developed and grown his business extensively over the past 13 years, including successfully navigating the family succession planning process. Given the stability that his business can now provide him, Steve is very interested in spending more time on developing the grass-fed beef industry for his and generations to come.
Nominated by: Adam Coffey and David Hill
Tess is a fifth generation grazier with extensive experience in the Northern Breeding, Backgrounding & Processing industries respectively.
From 2013 to 2022, Tess was the General Manager with Signature Beef, a family owned branded beef company processing & exporting beef across most continents. Tess is currently a grazier in Central Queensland.
Tess attained a Bachelor of Business Management from UQ, and has participated in a range of industry programs such as the 2013 CCA Rising Champions program, representing Queensland. In 2012, she was fortunate to be awarded the Edgar Hudgins Scholarship, allowing her to travel throughout the USA Beef Industry.
In 2020, Tess was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship, allowing extensive insights into a range of Agricultural Industries.
Nominated by: Cameron McIntyre and Paul Wright
Rob is a beef producer of 40+ years. He is 61 years old, married to Donna, and has two adult children Amy and John.
Rob was born and bred in North Queensland, then, over the next 40 years moved around the state. He initially moved to a property in Central Qld near Middlemount for 10 years before selling and buying a dairy farm near Mundubbera for three years, and then moving to Katandra between Hughenden and Winton for 17 years.
Rob purchased a property near Goomeri in 2018 which has since been sold and bought Cocklebinda near Baralaba in February 2023, where he and Donna live and work alongside their son John, their daughter-in-law Bec and their young family.
Rob is passionate about the grassfed beef cattle industry as he has worked cattle all his life.
He served as President of Droughtmaster Australia for eight years, and Chairman of Northbeef for six years. Northbeef was formed in an attempt to establish a regional abattoir in North West Queensland following the Live Export ban in 2011.
Rob is standing as a candidate for sub region 14 of the RCC because he is passionate about all aspects of the grass-fed beef cattle industry and producer’s property rights.
Rob believes that good communication is vital for each and every Cattle Australia member, that this organisation needs to be driven from the ground up and if a member has something to say, they should be given every opportunity for their message to reach the Cattle Australia Board.
Rob would like to wish each candidate standing in Region 14 every success in the election process.
Nominated by: Amanda Roughan and Alison Larard
Jayne lives and works on a cattle property in Central Queensland as part of a family business.
Between working in the paddock and teaching her children, she also runs her own media company. After growing up in a beef business outside Charters Towers, Jayne has spent over 20 years as a professional communicator- reporting, writing and broadcasting across Australia and overseas.
Jayne has had extensive experience as a trained facilitator and has a diverse portfolio in freelance writing, podcast hosting, public speaking, broadcasting, communications consulting, producing, editing, website management and project management. She has won four media awards for her coverage of rural issues.
Currently, Jayne hosts Beef Australia’s What’s Your Beef? podcast, the FutureBeef podcast and AgriFutures Australia’s podcast. She also hosts and produces There’s an Elephant in My Paddock. Jayne loves being involved in the community and has several local, state and national board and committee positions including Australian Women in Agriculture, ICPA, school councils, industry groups and of course local sporting clubs!
Nominated by: Rae Hill and David Lyons
Doreen has spent her entire life in the rural industry. She grew up on a cattle, sheep and grain property in the Western Downs. After finishing school, she attend Longreach Pastoral College.
Doreen began her career in the beef cattle industry in the Northern Territory and North Qld, before moving back to the Balonne Shire. She has extensive experience with the grass-fed cattle industry, including but not limited to, breeding and backgrounding. She has been employed with MDH Pty Ltd for 10 years, the past five years managing their backgrounding property, ‘Clearwater’ at St George.
Nominated by: Ben Drynan and Amanda Roughan
Caitlin is a Senior Associate in the Agriculture & Food and Natural Capital Markets Teams at Clayton Utz,
working across practice groups nationally in relation to the role agriculture plays in respect of natural
capital markets, ESG investment opportunities & risk, and agrivoltaics.
Caitlin specialises in agriculture & food legislation, water law, food security policy and frameworks, and climate related litigation.
Caitlin has a Master of Laws from the University of Melbourne specialising in issues pertaining to agriculture, particularly the role climate change, food, and water security plays in the context of national security in Australia. Her research paper considering the Water Act 2000 (Cth) in the context of ‘critical human water needs’ was published and is now used by the Melbourne Law School as teaching material.
In 2022, Caitlin was an inaugural recipient of the Farmers for Climate Action Climate-Smart Farming Scholarship which focussed on carbon neutral agriculture including the calculation of methane emissions on farm and throughout the value chain, and climate adaptation methods.
In conjunction with her role at Clayton Utz, Caitlin is recognised as a young leader and top agribusiness professional in Australia, and as an advocate for youth in agriculture, and mental health & wellness in the legal and agricultural sectors. She is a sixth generation farmer who oversees the day-to-day management of her family property (beef, agrivoltaics & agritourism) in SEQ, and is also a Chair of the Future Farmers Network, a Member of the National Farmers’ Federation Farm Data Code Certification Panel, the National Farmers’ Federation Young Farmers’ Council, the Queensland Law Society Water & Agribusiness Law Committee, and the Agribusiness Australia Queensland State Council.
Garry was born and raised on a commercial beef cattle property south of Gloucester in New South Wales. Garry has personal cattle production interests in this region today as well as his corporate role as the Managing Director and CEO of AAM, a business that has a significant focus in continuing to expand beyond our cattle production interests in Central West NSW, near Forbes and Bective Station near Tamworth, NSW.
Garry has over 25 years’ experience in large scale livestock production management within the Australian agribusiness sector. His experience spans across a vast array of areas of the agricultural supply chain and includes managing businesses involved in livestock breeding, growing and finishing, financing of agricultural projects, implementation of precision agriculture practices, investigation and implementation of sustainability and innovation initiatives and developing and operating integrated agricultural businesses.
In 2007, Garry founded the company that today is AAM, commencing the development, operation and management of a portfolio of agricultural assets valued at $887 million and he remains the major shareholder of AAM.
Garry has a unique skill set across multiple facets of the grass-fed cattle production supply chain, from production through to finishing, as well as a unique perspective of the challenges facing all grass-fed producers within Australia through his involvement in the modernisation and development of livestock marketing facilities throughout Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
George is married with four (4) children, Harry 24, Emma 22, Dave 15 and Tom 13. He also enjoys flying and has his pilot’s license.
George is also a Founding Director of The Wellness House and a Founding Director of ONFARM CO. He has a strong voluntary involvement with his community including as the NSW Rural Fire Services Senior Dept Capt. and Chairman of St Paul’s Carcoar.
Bryce Camm hails from Dalby in Queensland’s Darling Downs region where he oversees his family’s company Camm Agricultural Group; an integrated beef and cropping enterprise with interests across Queensland.
Bryce has been CEO of the group for the past eight years. Prior to that he was the Manager of the group’s award winning Wonga Plains Feedlot for eight years where he oversaw the operation triple in size. Growing up on “Natal Downs” Station in north Queensland Bryce undertook a dual degree in Business Administration and Communications at Bond University and is a graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Program as well as the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course.
Bryce is currently the Chairman of Beef Australia Ltd and the Immediate Past President of the Australian Lot Feeders Council, as well as a previous Director of the Red Meat Advisory Council.
Elke is an experienced non-executive director in the agribusiness and customer-owned banking sector with a passion for member-centric organisations. She brings a grower perspective coupled with her genuine drive to elevate the industry through innovation. She was selected to the National Farmers Federation ‘Diversity in Ag Leadership’ 2022, among 12 women nationally.
Elke has a broad background in the agricultural industry as a producer and rural financial coach across regional NSW challenging business models & production systems for growers across a wide range of commodities. Elke is a joint owner & director of a broad acre family cattle farm at Harden NSW since 1993. Cleverdon Ag raises & trades black Angus cattle
Elke brings a wealth of financial, risk management and governance experience. Her current non-executive director roles include Local Land Services (NSW), Murrumbidgee Health (NSW Health) and SWS Credit Union. Some of her many strengths is a strong focus on strategy, risk and a triple bottom line while chairing large scale audit & risk committees
Elke is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), a Fellow CPA, and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in marketing, finance, business strategy and leadership. Her critical thinking and business acumen after 16 years’ experience as an executive in customer-owned banking and the last 6 years as a Rural Financial Coach, makes her an ideal candidate seeking to advance producers’ long-term best interests in a fair & strong supply chain.
Nominated by: Peter Hall, Troy Setter, Bryce Camm, David Hill, Adam Coffey
For the past 45 years, David has held rural property management, executive and senior management positions across all mainland states in areas of; beef cattle & sheep breeding, growing and lot feeding, meat retailing, small seed growing, irrigated fodder, and the further processing and exporting of primary products such as meat, grain and fodder.
His export experiences which started in 1989 included a role with Stanbroke Pastoral Company to help develop Stanbroke’ s Live cattle export program. Additionally, David managed the integration of Bottle Tree feedlot grain feeding in the production system while developing and launching their now globally recognised Diamantina beef brand.
David has been in a leadership role at the Lee Family’s, Australian Country Choice group of Companies since 1999 and progressed in that time from General Manager Properties & Livestock to Group Managing Director until stepping back in December 2020 from a full time role to a strategic advisory and board role.
Headquartered in Brisbane and employing over 1,400 staff across 42 operations, Australian Country Choice (ACC) operates Australia’s largest vertically integrated beef supply chain; encompassing cattle breeding, cattle growing and feedlotting to supply its integrated food processing facility in Brisbane that incorporates beef slaughter, beef boning, value-adding and case ready beef packing.
ACC’s cattle property portfolio of around 4 million acres in Queensland & NSW encompasses operations from the Barkly Tableland, CQ coalfields, Carnarvon ranges, Augathella, Blackall, Roma, and Moonie districts of Queensland, with a carrying capacity of 300,000 head. of cattle to support the Company’s 3 feedlots.
Additionally, David represents Agricultural & Cattle industry interests in his role as; Non-Government member Australia Indonesia Red Meat & Cattle Partnership, member SmartSat CRC, member Cattle Australia -Policy Council, member Australian Meat Industry Council -China & Halal Trade Groups, Chair Workplace Health & Safety Queensland -Rural Industry Sector Standing Committee, Deputy Chair Laguna Bay Pastoral investment committee and Board Member lnventia Genetic Technologies (IGT).
Away from work David has a small cattle property in the Mt Kilcoy (Qld) district running Charolais & Charbray breeders to the delight of his four grandchildren.
David wishes to continue into a second term to help build a strong and successful Cattle Australia to represent the interest of all cattle producers
