James Tierney named Gary Dick Award winner for FY26

James Tierney, director of Riverina Livestock Agents in Wagga Wagga, NSW, has won the Gary Dick Award for FY26.

The Gary Dick Award honours an assessor at the forefront of innovation on the platform, judged on clearance, throughput and product adoption alongside advocacy for the profession. Launched in 2024, it commemorates former AuctionsPlus CEO Gary Dick, who led the business from 1987 to 2014 and played a key role in its growth into a national platform.

Mr Tierney has worked as an AuctionsPlus cattle and sheep assessor since 2011 and has held Level 1 accreditation for the past 10 years, assessing across both species through Riverina Livestock Agents.

AuctionsPlus CEO Wyn Snyman congratulated Mr Tierney on the award.

"Congratulations to James. He's an all-rounder who not only sells significant numbers of both sheep and cattle through the platform but is also an adopter of innovation," Mr Snyman said.

"He is a champion of the platform and we thank him for his outstanding contributions over many years."

For Mr Tierney, the reason he puts so much livestock through AuctionsPlus comes down to one thing.

"It's competition. I think it's pretty essential for the industry to have competition for livestock. That's how we find what the real price point is," he said.

Asked what advice he'd give other assessors on the platform, Mr Tierney pointed to honesty and diligence as the foundation of good assessing.

"To the best of your ability, do it properly and honestly. That's absolutely number one. Your ethics have got to be good, and you've got to do everything as thoroughly as you can," he said.

His second tip is just as simple, but sometimes overlooked: know who you're selling to.

"Sometimes I see things on there that assessors put on and I think to myself, do you actually know who you're trying to sell this to? Know who's going to buy the stock, then you can tailor your comments to understand what they want," he said.

Mr Tierney grew up on his family's sheep farm in western Victoria, where he spent much of his childhood around livestock and sale yards. He started a traineeship with Elders at 18 and spent nine and a half years with the company before establishing Riverina Livestock Agents in Wagga Wagga in 2011.

Mr Tierney believes winning the National Auctioneers competition in 2008 helped raise his profile within the industry, which has also helped him succeed on the national AuctionsPlus platform.

AuctionsPlus Awards FY26 Winners:

Top Throughput Cattle Assessor: Darryl Napper

Top Throughput Sheep Assessor: Kelvin Donnan

Top Throughput Cattle Agency and Top Throughput Combined Livestock Agency: Davidson Cameron & Co

Top Throughput Sheep Agency: Spence Dix & Co Keith

Top Throughput Machinery Agency: Phillips Livestock & Auctions

Howard Gardner Award: Trevor Basset

Gary Dick Award: James Tierney

Young Gun Award: Charlie Bible

Industry Woman of the Year: Sam Platts

Machinery Excellence Award: Angus Newcombe