Disagreement On Wool Scheme

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30794, 5 July 1965, Page 13

Disagreement On Wool Scheme

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

MELBOURNE, July 4.

The proposed reserve wool price scheme would lift the average price of wool, Sir William Gunn, the chairman of the Australia Wool Board, said today.

In a radio broadcast to woolgrowers, he said the scheme could in fact prevent a collapse of wool prices.

“Prices usually fall because of lack of confidence and buyers’ hold-off for fear that their competitors will buy at a lower price,” he said.

“They stay out of the market until they believe the fall has reached its bottom. “If overseas users know they cannot get our wool for less than a certain price, they will come back into the market with confidence, knowing that competitors also cannot buy it cheaper.

“The board is absolutely convinced that in periods of slack demand the scheme will mean higher prices than would otherwise be received."

The board's reserve price scheme was tantamount to asking growers to “sign a blank cheque,” Mr Ronald Chandler said in Brisbane. Mr Chandler, the Queensland chairman of the Committee for the Retention and Improvement of the Free Wool Market, said a large national committee of woolgrowers, representing a wide cross-sec-tion of the industry, had been formed to campaign strongly against the wool board’s marketing scheme.

Committees were being formed in each State to work with the national committee.

He said it was “grossly incorrect” to suggest that the Australian Wool Industry Conference, which adopted the reserve price scheme, spoke for woolgrowers as a whole.