For more than ten years newsagent associations fought each other, often viciously, over the issue of unity of representation. There was a sigh of relief when unity was announced by the various associations.
It appears to me that the announced unity is not the unity newsagents wanted.
Today, newsagents face the most significant national issue on which retail newsagents and distribution newsagents should be represented by a single national voice. Instead, the major state associations are running the issue with different messages and via different means.
This is a missed opportunity for newsagents.
Whereas in the past newspaper contract matters were state-based, as that is how publishers handled them, today, they are national – the publishers have made them so.
Look at NANA, VANA and the QNF: they are each running T2020 as a state issue. T2020 is national. It should be run nationally for newsagents by the ANF. These state associations ought to have asked the ANF to run it months ago and they ought to have resourced the ANF to run it.
The best association is one that represents its members on issues of policy and direction. Running off at a tangent investing in and setting up businesses and funding legal fights has been shown for many years to be a waste of association resources.
If the fat were cut from the various newsagent associations and a single national body established to be a true association, I am sure more newsagents would engage. The conflicting agendas between the state associations misrepresent the needs of today’s newsagents.
Our channel is over-governed for its size. Unless it establishes more efficient, modern-day and genuinely unified representation, the various voices of the various associations will continue to be ineffective for the newsagents they claim to represent.
The announcements of unity from a year or so ago appear to have been hollow words. When newsagents need consistent national representation, too much time and money is being spent on local approaches.
There is not much more to say other than I agree. One for all and all for one.
The newsagents themselves can fix this.
You know how to do it guys – do as I
have done and withdraw your fees until
your association agrees with unity at the
FEDERAL level.
We cannot talk the talk if we don’t walk the walk.
Many of us have been trying for many years and the announcement of unity was
hollow and misrepresented – hence I DO
NOT PAY ANY FEES AND WILL ONLY COMMENCE THEM WHEN WE ARE TRULY UNITED.
There are too many people getting too much money for too little effort in our
ever reducing industry.
Stand tall and demand action from your state associations.
N
June on the other hand there are to many that complain about what they are doing that are not even members .
Stand tall all you want BUt without members there will be nothing to stand tall about . I myself complain from time to time about the QNF but i have every right to I am a paying member .
Shaun, where there is no accountability
we have the right to complain. I have
been in the industry for 34 years and
have openly contributed (as has my husband who was an ANF executive board
member) but when you see the lack of accountability and the lack of outcomes and you request that things be done differently and no-one listens it is time to
stand up (leave) and be counted.
By staying you are contributing to the
problem because they (ANF and state
associations) continue along doing WHAT
HASN’T WORKED.
The state associations have ALWAYS thought they knew better and Unity will
never be achieved while we have people
at the helm in the state associations who
are hellbent on keeping us away from Unity. It is purely and simply job protection and anyone who says it isn’t
is wrong.
The states purport to know their members
better – the ANF has not been allowed to
grow in status and that is a dreadful shame.
I would happily join the ANF if it were truly national (or federated) but THIS IS NOT SO.
Your state has been guilty of blocking unity at every turn in the past and it is
a shame that our industry has been so held to ransom by so few.
To move forward we need to (at state level) demand that each state becomes a
branch (NANA, VANA AND QNF WILL NEVER AGREE) of the ANF but it takes
constitutional change for this to occur and
those large states have paid lip service to
the “agreement” of unity but they simply
go their own way as in the T2020 discussion above.
It is a truly national issue and our state has not only been a branch of the ANF for
several years but we still have our own trading arm (Ancol) and it functions very
well at a state level and we have our own
ANF representative here and that also works.
This is not about going over old ground but it is about NOT HAVING OUTCOMES THAT ARE GOOD FOR NEWSAGENTS.
As Mark has said many times – the publishers will only deal with us on a national basis.
For our industry’s sake I urge newsagents
to demand unity in a cognisant form and
not just the states paying lip service to it.
Please don’t bother to ring me up and tell
me why I’m wrong (NANA, VANA & QNF
directors) because if you know the history
you know I’m right.
A few rebels have been allowed to dictate
the terms in this industry.
It is all about politics and power and guess
what – with no industry there will be no
politics and no power to be gained so who
wins then?
I still stand by the fact the you have no right to complain about something that you don’t even contribute to . I am not saying you are wrong about not being a member your points are all valid they are fair enough reasons for not being part of it ..
Shaun S : You are not correct to assert that non members have no right to complain. Your position is neither rational nor logical.
June has every right to voice her opinion. She along with others have made a deliberate and conscious decision not to be members because their expectations of association membership have not been met. We have criticised VANA from within and it made no difference. We resigned and now we criticise from the outside. The only way it ‘ll change is when it loses members at a greater rate than it can cut it’s costs.
So if people don’t leave, it will never listen and it will never change.
Shaun,
I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have remained a member of both a state organization (VANA) and the ANF despite serious misgivings as to their integrity and effectiveness and true willingness to work together in the forlorn hope that things might improve.
June is spot on in her assessment of things and while the state organizations remain as personality & personal agenda-driven organizations undermining the national approach we will get walked over every time by both suppliers and government representatives.
When VANA, NANA & QNF have the balls to get honest with themselves and their members and replace themselves with state-based representatives of the ANF and start to work on issues like T2020 as a true national team then I and many others might reconsider their decision to relinquish their membership.
My resignation goes in tomorrow – at least it will be one less newsagent News Ltd and Fairfax can take the piss out of!
So we all want changes , fair enough of course we do . So while waiting on these changes everyone quits there membership and all the Vanas Nanna Anf Qnf all collaps because without members they are not there anymore .
Jim when was the last meeting you went to about the T2020 , i went a couple of weeks ago and to me they do seem to be working on it ,i am not to sure why you think they are not .
Boys, the T2020 is already a fait accompli
in our state and talking about it will accomplish nothing.
Rounds are simply not saleable anymore
and when newsagents walk away from them the Advertiser just puts in a delivery
person to continue.
The migration of accounts means you have
nothing to sell any more.
ANF are unable to do anything for us as
they are simply a talkfest.
However, if the large states were nationalized/federated (who cares which)
we might have a chance to negotiate as
a large formidable body upon whom this
is being thrust.
Nationalization would mean the end of state offices so Federation (joining up of
the states) like we have done politically
could be the way to go but we have to get
rid of the parochial mindset of each of the
3 larger states – “I am the best” sort of
mentality.
Only then can we move forward.
If we don’t move quickly it will all be over for our industry and we will see our fellow
newsagents (distributing agents) forced
to the wall.
I don’t have distribution anymore but I sure feel desperately sad for them (my fellow agents) all over Australia who have
capital invested in an industry which will
potentially return nothing to them for all
the hard work that they have done.
It is simply not right and we have been our
own worst enemies because of the unity
issue which has been dragged along at a
snail’s pace to appease the 3 large states.
NANA, VANA & QNF – You should hang your heads in shame, but you won’t because newsagents won’t leave you- they trust you the poor buggers!!!!!
Shaun,
This is not simply about T2020 – it applies to many issues in the past which have not been properly addressed by the various organisations “representing” us and will, under the current structure, no doubt continue into the future.
T2020 may work (for some) but I am yet to see answers to even the simplest of questions e.g. how do we handle a customer who gets a paper from 3 different publishers over the course of the week and likes to come in and pay weekly or fortnightly over the counter.
But I suppose I have lost my right to question these things because I am no longer a member of either of the organisations “representing” me on industry-wide issues.
Jim i did not bring up T2020 you did ?
Jim just for the record i hate the idea of T2020 the paper companys have come to the table with no answers for retail newsagents .
Lost the right to question who ? Ring News and question them all you want no one is stopping you . To think someone else will fight for you and soley survive on fresh air is not going to happen , but at the end of the day hopefully when all the t2020 thing is sorted maybe you could thank the newsagents that funded it ..
Shaun, the paper companies do not recognize retail agents as newsagents.
Historically a newsagent was a distributing agent who then on sold the paper to a subagent (retailer of some sort).
As a retailer now I have NO AGREEMENT with the paper company – my newsagent
has the “clout” to talk to the company – not me.
Personally I was happy to drop to a subagency basis from 25% to 12.5%
because I considered papers to only be a
very insignificant part of my mix once I had
sold my distribution round.
So if retailers in other states are on 25%
I would be very surprised (it has never happened in SA).
News/Fairfax are very happy to use our retail premises for their goods to be displayed and for their “promos” but when
it comes to being partners in an industry
they will quickly tell you that they have one on one agreements with distribution
agents.
We are flogging a dead horse (papers)
and we need to move on.
The only answers I would be looking for
would be “how long before the demise of
the daily paper” and you have no hope of
them telling you that because they literally
don’t know themselves.
They will just wake up one morning and
the papers will have done another nose-dive and they will shut the print shop and
every newsagent who is still throwing papers will be out of work with no recompense and possibly still owing money
to a bank.
My suggestion would be to take a lot of
“loss of profits” insurance and read the fine print carefully.
Let’s bring this back to the core of the post. T2020 is a national issue. It’s needs national representation. The different approaches being taken in different states is not helping the newsagent cause.
As for T2020 itself, it worries me that so much is being spent on this one thing when many other issues over which we have roe control are ignored. This comes down to poor leadership.
T2020 is a worry for Business’s that rely on News Ltd publications, you can feel the angst, I feel that you are right Mark, however News employed some smart cookies are as guilty as “our” representatives.
When you were aware T2020 were you under the impression that it would be rolled out and handled nationally?
I pull my hair out nearly literally regarding my lack of control in the Print part of my business, it should not be so stressful although I am a very small business, I cannot imagine what Newsagents who have 400 plus unique magazines & erratic Newspaper allocation go through. Newsagent earn every cent they make I am sure of that.
Yes derek, T2020 has always been a national project since News announced it over two years ago.
Shaun,
If you read para 3 of my original post you will see that I use T2020 purely as an example of where associations have failed to properly represent newsagents.
I wish I could share your confidence that the associations will sort this and other issues (such as the magazine supply abuse that we are forced to endure 3 times a week) out – if and when they do I will happily thank those responsible but until then my money stays in my pocket.
Why should I or any other newsagent continue to support and feed those non-performers masquerading as newsagent “representatives” who have had and blown more chances than any of us will ever get.
i would be interested to see if anyone else on here is with the ANF VANA or QNF or am i the only one . Mark are you part of any of them ?
Just for the record i was with the ANF at one stage but quit it when the whole Bill Xpress thing happened . I then joined up with the QNF later on down the track because i still needed a voice ,someone that could call up the magazine companys and have a winge for me,which they have done someone that wouold call up the paper companys and have a winge for me , and they have ,this is just a couple of things that i have usedd the QNF for there are plenty of other times i have called on them for either advice or to fix somethig up for me . But each to there own i suppose ..
Shaun I did not renew my VANA /ANF memberships six or seven years ago for reasons I covered here at the time.
Through my ownership of Tower I put more money into the associations than just about any other individual. Unless there is genuine national unity this level of financial support will not continue.
Well i was wondering why you sponsor there events but yet do not like what they do .I would never question the fact you do sponsor and put a lot of money into the industry but at the end of the day it is advertising dollars
Shaun I have openly supported the associations for years. It’s only in recent days that I have spoken out – particularly against the states on their hodge-podge approach to T2020 and the lack of a national strategy for a national issue.
the money I give to the associations is not advertising dollars in that there is no return. I get more from marketing investments in associations outside the newsagency channel.
Shaun my husband was the chairman of
NASA (SA) and was an executive director
of ANF so I do have some idea of what has
happened in the past and is still happening.
Newsagents must choose for themselves
but when you say the QNF has “gone to bat” for you I would say that is only a personal outcome and not one that matters to us all.
National/Federated Unity is the only answer.
Think about how we all feel about state politics and federal politics. Who has the
power – who has the clout? Federal of course.
I’m not trying to flog a dead horse by bringing up the past – what I want newsagents to do is DEMAND that their
association go national – not the fairy floss
national that is apparent at the moment.
This protracted argument has been going
on for 20 years and all to no avail.
IF WE DON’T DO SOMETHING THERE WILL
BE NO INDUSTRY, FOLKS!!!!
The ball is in your court. No membership
locally will mean the associations will HAVE
to listen to each voice and do as you demand.
IT IS CALLED THE POWER OF ONE AND EACH OF YOU HAVE THAT POWER