Divide clear in WoolPoll

AWI released the breakdown for each levy percentage option at its annual general meeting last Friday in Sydney. It revealed while support for the 2pc option was down about 11pc, nearly one-third of growers voted for a 1pc levy – up from 12.3pc in 2009 to 29.2pc in 2012.

Results in the eastern states and South Australia were within six per cent of the 2009 vote, according to AWI. But WA is being put forward as the reason for a marked increase in woolgrowers’ overall vote for 1pc.

AWI has not released a breakdown by State of how many growers voted for the different levy options so the full extent of the influence of the WA vote is not publicly known. It was discussed at length at AWI’s board meeting last Thursday.

Mr McCullough compared this year’s support for 1pc to the 2003 WoolPoll when AWI had $116m in reserve – compared with its current $103m at the end of 2011-12.

“We have 60pc of the country voting for 2pc or above, we move on, that’s our figure, we have a mandate to progress,” he said.

But he said AWI would do “some soul searching” over the WA result. This would include reviewing the organisation’s level of investment and commitment in the State.

During the vote, WAFarmers and the Pastoralists & Graziers Association instructed their members to vote for a levy of 1pc or less while other state farming organisations did not advocate a percentage.

“WA was disappointing. If they were aiming to send us a message, they’ve sent that message, it has been heard, it has been understood and we’re very disappointed,” Mr McCullough said.

“We thought we’d lifted the heart rate there in the past couple of years but it simply hasn’t yielded, in fact it’s gone the other way.

“That means everything we do we’ll have to look at very closely, every piece of expenditure, every cost, every visit, everything we do because what we’ve been doing hasn’t yielded.”

AWI would form an external committee of people it knew and trusted to assess the data – down to postcodes if necessary – and advise on how things could be improved in the State.

“I’m not going to do any knee-jerk reaction. The wool industry is famous for that, it goes one way and they swing the opposite,” Mr McCullough said.

“We will be very considered in our approach with regard to what we do in the next three years and certainly WA will be a focus and things will be different.”

In response to whether the board’s decision on the information nucleus flock could have played a role in the WA vote, Mr McCullough was uncertain.

“We’ve spent a bit of time looking at the figures to determine what went on and why it went on but I don’t know if that’s the case,” he said.

He said the positives of the WoolPoll vote were that participation rates were up 22pc, the zero vote was down 4pc on 2009, and it was 35pc cheaper than other years, saving woolgrowers’ money.

Of the 39,000 eligible levy payers, 41pc returned papers which represented 60pc in terms of votes.

WoolProducers Australia is awaiting a full state-by-state breakdown of voting before it comments further on the results.

Pastoralists & Graziers Association wool and livestock committee chairman Digby Stretch said the organisation would maintain an ongoing dialogue with AWI over the next three years to communicate WA growers’ dissatisfaction

He said there were several levels of disappointment with AWI, including its marketing and promotion spending and it’s decision on INF2.

“There’s a strong split nationally on marketing and promotion,” he said. “Most of the data we get back - and it’s very hard to measure - just links the price of wool with economic condition of different countries, regardless of how much money we spend on marketing.

“We are a significant part of the national flock and it’s a different system over here in many ways, we have had our say and we’ll be having ongoing dialogue with AWI.”

Mr Stretch said he would like to see more data from the WoolPoll result. While AWI had said it was disappointed with the WA result, he said no one knew whether that was because of voter turnout or the options voted for.