**Undisclosed meat cash prompts call for inquiry **

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/undisclosed-meat-cash-prompts-call-for-inquiry/story-fn59niix-1226083055515

A FORMER director of the nation's peak meat-processing research body has backed calls for an inquiry into the meat industry and admits the body had made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of undisclosed payments to one of his companies.

He said book-keeping by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation -- the meat-processing equivalent of Meat and Livestock Australia -- was "loose" and its finances lacked proper scrutiny.

Trevor Mickelborough, retired group operations director of Nippon Meat Packers Australia -- the local arm of a major Japanese corporation -- had been an AMPC board member between 2001 and 2007 while still employed by Nippon.

Mr Mickelborough yesterday confirmed that Nippon had received more than $800,000 in research and development grants from AMPC between 2003 and 2007, as detailed in internal AMPC documents obtained by The Australian.

The grants had been awarded under the AMPC's Plant Initiated Projects scheme in which a quarter of the cost of an approved research project is paid by the company and by AMPC, with the federal government paying the remainder through MLA.

In 2005, AMPC said companies associated with eight of its nine directors -- including Mr Mickelborough -- had received research grants but it did not list their value, citing confidentiality agreements.

Mr Mickelborough said he had "no idea" why the transactions had not been disclosed. He said the AMPC's PIP scheme was "really introduced because AMPC was accumulating too much funds", and that decisions about which projects should be funded were approved by the board.

He said there was no problem with large meat processors receiving substantial grants because they also paid the majority of levies and he was confident the funds Nippon received were spent appropriately. Nevertheless, he said, the grants should have been disclosed.

The Australian this week revealed that JBS Australia, whose director John Berry is also a director of AMPC, had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from AMPC for research and development projects.

AMPC chairman Gary Hardwick declined to comment.

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click on link to read full story

Its a bit like the silence of the lambs in here.
& I thought at least old Yabby would be rushing in to defend his buddy's.

Gee sorry boys it appears you have lost your only faithful.

They say MLA ( no idea if its true) employ staff to do nothing but monitor media reports & pay big bucks to media PR companies to ward off any bad news publicity.

Thats just what people say & who knows if there is any truth in it.

I was reading the story about & it took my mind back to a nice Aussie guy who once wanted to purchase an abattoir. He had pretty much most of the fund & applied for some funding for the rest- not much.

He told me they said there were no funds available and a few weeks later a foreign owned company was given the $ which is in keeping with this story in the article.
It was a plant Kerry Packer & another company opened ( which is again
in keeping with this story.

The one thing I know is there never has been funds for research to re-open abattoirs.

MLA/CCA

News ID: 12321
ABA Chairman, Brad Bellinger, said today, My members' outrage at the 'Torture Boxes' that MLA sent to Indonesia and were displayed on the ABC Four Corners is now turning to MLA's treatment of Northern Cattlemen.'
http://www.austbeef.com.au/