It riles me that the promoters continue to mislead by omission, of the true situation in the industry. 

   None of them explain that the Australian Wool Exchange, the registrar of all Wool Classers, claims 19200 registered  Wool Classers on its latest figures

  That is an average of one for every eighty bales produced per year, or four days work in a four stand shed. Even the so called Master Classers on A.W.E.X. figures only work 13 weeks per year.You could never earn a living wage at it.

 None of the Institutions teaching  Wool Classing Courses  in Australia teaches the different methods of Classing for sale by Objective or Subjective measurement. 

   Now that A.W.I.is guaranteed $50 million a year wool levy on top  of other income for the next three years. Let's hope it not wasted as in the past ,on among other things, the the W.S.S.R and Portal.

   No more wasted money on robotic shearing, it will come in time,but will be far more expensive  per sheep than the current rates, --at that time whenever. 

   No need to waste more money on mulesing, many growers in the press say they stopped 10 years ago.

 The latest 2.5$ million promised in early December is more waste.

   Consumers don't care about it as A.W.I.  CEO  Stuart McCullough admitted on ABC Landline recently,  Just complete the mulesing free declaration form and forget about it.

Don't worry about Peta, Just google" Peta Australia, a dishonest and fraudulent organization " , and we may never hear from them again. It is a disgrace that the Federal Government allowed them charity tax free status in 2017 , this should be canceled. Fashion parades and cocktail parties, I have no idea if they work or not.

  One area money should be spent on is a modern method of measuring Wools attributes.  As also advocated by Charles Massy in his book " Breaking the Sheeps Back " in 2011.  The current one has been around for  50years and has always been a lottery/raffle. Micron ok if within 0.4 micron either side, now getting into big money. Yields and V.M. quite often inaccurate,V.M.on some skirtings testing 4% to 7%, when visually they look nearly free and sold that way, subjectively if given the chance.   When Objective and Subjective measurement operated side by side.. The current measuring system is the one that gave many wool growers yields  of 62% on fleece lines 56% on pieces  and 48% on locks, no wonder they got out of wool. I.e. Coolana, and they had heaps of style.

   Objective measurement was the ruination of style, which doesn't really matter,  There is no style in locks and look at the price they bring,  Proves any one who brands wool tender, is mad.

   The only good thing objective measurement accomplished was preventing the weighing 2kg down of growers wool going into many wool merchants stores and 4kg up going out, which could be always blamed on atmospheric conditions if challenged,and" paid for the cartage ".The  second 2kg could still be recovered it was later found.   

   The main reason for Wool Classing is to get the highest possible price for the owner, .

   This was a lot easier when wool was sold subjectively, 95% of bales could be improved by a skilled  Wool Classer, to be this highly skilled one had to have worked in Wool Dealing .

    With selling by objective measurement it became a lot harder,but not impossible to obtain higher prices than those obtained by a basically trained Classer. 

    What is particularly noticeable is that the sheep population of Australia has dropped from 176 million to about 75 million since the introduction of sale by objective measurement, hardly a coincidence. 

   Australia has an exceptionely fragile environment, any study would agree, and the future does not look very good.

   With the huge number of imported noxious plants, vermin, feral animals, and excess immigration. Why the stampede to make Australia into a third world country, which is the way it is going.  

    Australia is over populated now according to The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery and Collapse by Jared Diamond,  and many other experts in this area, mostly estimating Australia's sustainable population at about 15 million.

    Our main deficiencies are lack of water and arable land. Most of our native animals are dying out at an alarming rate. All of the smaller insects, reptiles, and birds are disappearing. I don't know anyone under fifty who has seen an Emperor Gum Caterpillar. The European Wasp is definately to blame, they will attack anything small and soft, I have seen them attacking snails ,what hope have baby birds got just out of the egg. There will be almost nothing left in years to come.

   A  smaller immigration policy is needed from third world countries as when they come here and see water flowing from a tap they go berserk. When they are used to carting water from a river or well, and here it flows freely from a tap they waste huge amounts as they decline to use plugs in basins, sinks or troughs.

  Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa must be restricted as Bob Katter suggests,  but I disagree with him on forest clearing. Japan is 74 % covered with forests they will not cut down, they want ours instead. 

   If Agriculture Minister , David Littleproud believes another review is needed into Australian Wool Innovation for reasons of governance, who votes and who holds proxy’s and Wal Merriman looking through a two way mirror, so be it. But it will be another waste of time and money:

.  The Wool Taskforce Diversity and Innovation Report of July 1999, lists  55 Major reports, starting with the Philp Report in 1962 through  to 1999, and it states it is far from a complete list. ( see page  A6.1).  With many more reports since.

  All of them accomplished next to nothing. The usual panel for all these reports is two C.E.O,s from anywhere. Someone from a university, an accountant or banker and one or two quasi politicians/ farmers. All of whom would know that wool comes from a sheep, but not the argot of the wool industry.

   They will talk about educating consumers and processors. Consumers don’t need educating,they need money. Processors are already educated, they admit wool is a wonderful fibre, that is why European Processors have their Mega Yachts floating around the Mediterranean Sea.

    The only reason for a review should be obtaining higher prices. Which would be brought about by better preparation, classing, testing and lotting, with the emphasis on the price relationship of    Wool, Cashmere, Mohair, Angora and Alpaca, where a lot of super fine and fine wool finishes up.

    Also a competitor for Australian Wool Testing Authority, which was discussed in the Diversity and Innovation Report ( page 78 ). So that wool growers could sell with whichever certificate they preferred.  

    Test results from two different testing companies would be very interesting. As historically any wool tested twice by Australian Wool Testing Authority, with different brands unbeknown to A W T A. has never duplicated its results. With the brand and lot number known to A W T A, It’s just confirmed if it’s reasonably similar to the original.   

   Wool Growers lately seem to be quite happy with prices recived,no whinging, but it is no time to be complacent, there is still plenty of upside, if you think about it.    

   Australian Wool Innovation did nothing to bring about these rises. They started the Wool Selling Systems Review three years ago to save costs, “sheeps back to ship”. Despite repeated advice that it would not achieve one cent of savings, they continued with it.

    WoolQ will not achieve higher prices either, A W I is claiming 1c per kg, gain over 15 years, hallelujah. That is a guarantee of a loss.

    All that will achieve higher prices is better more even classing, and an improved auction system.

     1.  All fleece wool must be skirted, unskirted fleece should not be tested. It is unclassed, many people will say the sweat points will scour out. This is NOT true.

      2.  Pieces and bellies must follow the fleece lines on the show floor as traditionally was the case, for obvious reasons.

      3.  The more Wool Buyers the better, the idea of one organisation putting a wool type on a lot and expecting everyone to agree is ridiculous, it cuts out initiative and leads to lower prices.

      4.  Something A W I  should investigate is ways of getting the vast sums of money gained by overseas processors when Super fine wool is blended and sold as Cashmere and Mohair. Which is legal as told in  “ The Wool Sting “. Most super fine locks, and there are many thousands of bales of them per year finish up as Mohair and have for many years, possibly 100 years to huge profits. Cashmere On it’s own cannot meet world demand as a cashmere goat can only grow about 250 -300 grams of super fine fibre per year, so Cashmere stocks can be multiplied many times with the addition of Super fine Australian Wool.

       5   A more modern way of testing wool, yield, and vegetable matter is needed, it has always been a raffle.

      Allthough some 16 micron wool has reached 3000 cents per kg. clean this week. No thanks to the A W I.  It is still only about a quarter the price of Cashmere.

       Again as I always say. Someone has to pay for the Mega Yachts floating around the Mediterranean Sea.