And AgriFutures Australia Chair Kay Hull says tickets to the annual Rural Women’s Awards gala dinner to be held in Canberra next month have been selling like “hot cakes” despite charging guests to attend, for the first time.

The RIRDC has undergone several major changes in recent times including appointing new senior management, while also being relocated from Canberra to Wagga Wagga in regional NSW, under the Coalition government’s decentralisation policy that’s being led by Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce.

AgriFutures Australia will be the RIRDC’s new trading name but it remains a government statutory authority established by the Primary Industries Research and Development Act 1989.

Ms Hull said AgriFutures Australia was more than just a name change and represented the organisation’s renewed purpose and direction.

“Our new name signals a distinct path for our organisation,” she said.

“We have upended our thinking to be proactive in the face of a rapidly changing environment and to harness the many opportunities this presents to our organisation and the sector.

“AgriFutures Australia forges new frontiers for learning, pushes for greater collaboration across sectors, invests in new and emerging industries, harnesses new technologies and builds the capability of emerging leaders to deliver real on-farm benefits.

“We’ve set our sights on transforming the rural industries we partner with to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

“Our new name reflects our place in agriculture, our national mandate and our steely focus on the future.”

Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has seized on the Rural Women’s Awards charging attendees for the first time in 22 years, link the issue to ongoing criticism of the government’s decentralisation agenda.

But Ms Hull has defended the move and said the new policy was working and this year’s attendance would be almost double that of past events.

She said by charging for tickets, the organisers had been able to “capture” the corporate and banking markets to “really showcase our women”.

“In my view it’s been worth attendees paying for tickets to our dinner to see and experience the value and it’s been proven,” she said.

“We’ve been absolutely selling the tickets like hot cakes.

“We’ve always been limited to around 250 to 300 but we’ve now got about 490 which is a great news story.

“For the first time our finalists will be exposed to some fabulous people and corporates who they otherwise would not have been exposed to and they’re paying guests.

“Our numbers are higher than we’ve ever had – almost double and the interest is so strong and people are paying.”

Ms Hull said up until this year nobody paid to attend the dinner and in her view that was “acceptable”.

“It wasn’t exposing our finalists to the wide variety of opportunity that they could possibly have to more people being at the dinner, where we could encourage corporates, banks and others, to take an interest in what we do and what our women are doing,” she said.

“This year we’ve said we’d try and charge for tickets – the alumni still get a special deal of a lunch and a dinner for $160 and yes, there was some concern, by people out of the alumni, that they were being charged a fee for the first time.

“But I still stand by the view that $160 for a lunch and a dinner is good value, given the networking opportunities.”

Ms Hull said of the 490 who had said they’d attend this year’s awards dinner, 350 had paid so far and about 129 were going free of charge, comprising 34 MPs and Senators, sponsors, agency partners, AgriFutures Australia board members, advisory panel representatives from the various levy-payer groups and some invited media.

She said 18 alumni had paid for tickets but others would be seated at various sponsors’ tables, while six 2017 finalists plus a guest each, and three 2016 finalists – including last year’s winner Sophie Hansen from NSW who will host this year’s awards night as part of changes to the overall program – are also on the free of charge list.

Ms Hull said rather than paying a high profile personality to do the job, this year’s awards would introduce the previous year’s winner as the host, to provide exposure and learning opportunity.

“This is what it’s all about; strengthening and engaging those women and giving them the confidence and security to go forward,” she said.

“We’ve had to pay high profile people before but we’re not doing that now and that’s part of the progression of having the year of being the winner and participating in courses and programs that develop the winner and she can then go forward and MC the award’s evening the following year.

“Before, we were really determined on projects but now we’ll be looking at different ways to give more opportunities to more women to participate.

“Last year we had 295 people at the dinner and they were all at no cost – we met those costs – but that was not acceptable to me because I didn’t think we were exposing our women to enough people and enough opportunity to further their development.

“We’ve already surpassed that number this year, 350 paid guests, and we’re still selling tickets.”

Ms Hull said she didn’t know much the MC was paid in previous years but the overall cost of running the annual dinner was $89,000.

But she said the savings were now being spent on R&D and improving results for the development of rural leaders.

“We’re not looking for a revenue stream; we’re looking for savings so we can put that money into further development opportunities for our women to grow,” she said.