LAMB producers will ultimately cop the bill for legal efforts aimed at preventing their famous lambassador tag being used to support political aspirations.
Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi is not backing down over his Facebook post saying the lambassador Sam Kekovich supports him, which pointed to his party’s new advertisement featuring Mr Kekovich.
He says he did his homework and knew Meat and Livestock Australia had no intellectual property rights over the term lambassador, which has been used extensively in lamb marketing for the past ten years.
The crossbench senator from South Australia has now even bought the internet domain lambassador.com.au, adding more fuel to what is brewing up to be a major brawl with the lamb industry.
MLA managing director Richard Norton told a senate estimates meeting in Canberra this week his organisation, which runs the marketing for Australia’s red meat industry, would pull out all stops to protect the integrity of the term lambassador.
“Why MLA objects is because we would never endorse our material being used for promotion of any political party,” he said.
“Is the word part of the IP of MLA - no it’s not. Will it be in a month’s time - I suspect so,” he said.
“We never envisaged having to spend levy payers’ money going to court to protect the word lambassador but we have to. That’s the world we live in.”
MLA had already tried writing to the senator asking him to desist and the reply had been he would not, Mr Norton reported.
MLA’s first battlefront will be action against Mr Kekovich, whom it alleges has breached his contract by agreeing to sing the praises of a politician.
Mr Norton argued it was MLA’s job to protect levy payers’ interests, who had invested a lot in the lambassador term “which one could say was created by Kekovich and MLA and other parties.”
While Senator Bernardi believes the whole thing is a “storm in a teacup”, his media spokesman did say that “since MLA has made such a big deal, the senator thought he might like to capitalise.”
He also said Senator Bernardi expressed regret that lamb producer’s money, which he felt would be better spent on drought relief, would be used this way.
Senator Richard Colbeck spoke at the estimates hearing in support of MLA, saying the organisation was recognising quite clearly its obligation not to be involved in any political process.
He said MLA hadn’t breached any funding agreement with the government but rather the issue was around “Mr Kekovich allegedly breaching his arrangements with MLA.”
Mr Norton explained the portion of the levy paid by producers on the transaction of animals that went to marketing was not matched by government funds the way research levies were.
So the development of the lambassador campaign had been entirely funded by levy payers, he said.
“We will not walk away from this issue. We will pursue our rights to that name so the senator stops using it as a form of advertising,” Mr Norton said.
“We are taking legal advice now and will explore every avenue we can.”