National Retail Association chairman Mark Brodie has resigned amidst controversy surrounding mysterious funding linked to tobacco companies.

Brodie has been the director of NRA for 26 years and chairman for 22 years.

It emerged late last month that the NRA was secretly involved in a new campaign to legalise e-cigarettes, after Australian Association of Convenience Stores unwittingly outed their involvement.

On June 27, the AACS issued a joint statement with the Master Grocers Association and the Australian Lotteries and Newsagents Association calling for a national policy summit on vaping.

The AACS is headed up by by former British American Tobacco executive Theo Foukkare and former Philip Morris executive Ben Meredith. Legalising vaping is one of its key goals; to that end it launched an information website named Access, aimed at quashing misinformation.

Upon the launch of Access, the AACS LinkedIn account revealed the NRA’s involvement.

“Huge thank you to Bec Goulter and the marketing team at the National Retail Association for bringing this to life”, the ACCS posted.

Goulter, NRA marketing manager, made no secrets of the organisation’s involvement: “This has been such an exciting project to work on. Can’t believe it’s finally live! Industry association supporting industry association!”

Just how the NRA brought the website to life remains unclear.

This wasn’t the NRA’s first link to tobacco companies.

Last year, AFR published an expose, “The secret money trail behind vaping” in which the Australian Retailers Association confirmed it cancelled a 2020 contract with global PR firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote and lobby to get e-cigarettes legalised.

Although the NRA denied any links to BC&W, after ARA walked away from the contract, on August 20, 2020, the NRA suddenly formed the Emerging Business Committee, tasked with lobbying to legalise vaping products.

As the AFR pointed out, Dominique Lamb, the CEO of the NRA, “who had not previously addressed the subject, began railing at the ‘unconscionable, illogical and indefensible’ restrictions on vaping.”

Following the AFR article, six directors resigned, with the NRA board reduced to three directors for five months, after claims of irregularities in the board restructure.

NRA’s June 2021 accounts showed a leap of $437,000 in revenue for “policy services”.

Tim Schaafsma will step in as the organisation’s new Chair, following Brodie’s leaving. Schaafsma is former CEO of Freedom Furniture and current Chair of the Australian Bedding Stewardship Council, and was previously Director of the Greenlit Brands group for over 15 years.