Pastoralists and Graziers Association ‘will survive’ financial misconduct scandal: President Tony Seabrook

The Pastoralists and Graziers Association is “far from dead”, president Tony Seabrook has declared, after the powerful lobby group went into voluntary suspension citing serious internal “financial misconduct”.

The PGA told members it had “hit the pause button” early on Friday, with staff stood down, membership fees frozen, and an investigation launched.

Speaking on the ABC’s Country Hour later that day, Mr Seabrook insisted the group had “every intention of continuing” and was “not about to go away”.

“This is what I’m going to call a hiccup, and the hiccup will pass,” he said.

“We’ll look back on this in time as a difficult period, but the PGA will survive this, and it will continue to do the work that it’s always done.”

In a statement sent to members, the PGA said it was working to “develop an accurate assessment of its financial position”, citing a “financial deficit in our current modelling”.

Asked how much money was involved, Mr Seabrook confirmed it was “a lot” but said it would be “improper” to reveal figures he could not verify “at this point in time”.

However, he later told The West Australian the PGA was “trying to track down” a $2 million long-term investment account.

Mr Seabrook told the ABC he became aware of issues between Christmas and the new year, and the PGA was still trying to determine “exactly what has happened”.

“One of our creditors informed us of a situation that we were unaware of,” he said.

“We went into Christmas after an executive meeting of the association in the firm belief that we were in an extremely sound financial situation, and what’s transpired since then has indicated that some of the stuff that we thought we knew wasn’t right.

“Rather than wait for other actions, we’ve decided to do the proper thing and commenced a process of investigation as to what we need to do.”

He said the PGA had “a lot of records to go back through”, but confirmed the misconduct “goes back a very long time”.

“We believe we’ve been let down, but there is not a single person that is a member of this association that is in any way involved in anything that’s happened here,” Mr Seabrook said.

“These are people of the utmost integrity.”

He also ruled out resigning over the scandal.

“Ultimately, we will determine where the fault lay, and whoever feels as they’re responsible may take the appropriate action, but right now . . . I’m in this for the long haul . . . and any intention of resignation, you can forget that, that’s not going to happen,” he said.