Woolgrowers Seeking Delay

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 17

Woolgrowers Seeking Delay

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) CANBERRA, September 14.

In a petition presented in Parliament today, 6356 woolgrowers throughout Australia urged the Government to defer the wool referendum pending an impartial inquiry into the reserve price scheme.

A New South Wales Liberal member, Mr T. E. F. Hughes, presented the petition. The petition said: “The Australian Wool Board, in recommending and campaigning for a reserve price marketing scheme for wool, had so far failed to place before growers any acceptable reasons to support the proposition that such a scheme was well founded.”

The petition warned of the “great dangers” inherent in the proposed scheme including: “If an error was made in fixing the level of the reserve price, or if through an

unforseen event after it had been fixed, the reserve price was too high, the probable result would be an accumulation of a large wool stockpile. “The existence of such a stockpile would necessarily limit the free flow of wool to, world markets. “A limitation on the free flow of wool would cause the demand for wool to be further diverted to synthetic fibres. “Funds which should be. and would better be used for research and promotion would be applied to financing the proposed scheme." Great Dangers The dangers were so great that Parliament should not pass any legislation designed to implement a reserve price scheme unless and until a competent and independent tribunal had investigated the advisability of the scheme, it said. The tribunal should also find out whether the unqualified rejection of a reserve price scheme by the Philp Committee in February, 1962. had been invalidated by later events. In their petition, the! growers said the Australian; Wool Board had acted beyond its statutory powers in spending large portions of its funds in putting forward the case for a reserve price scheme. t i

These funds would have been better spent on research’ and promotion. The petition urged that the Wool Board be restrained from continuing to spend money on promoting the proposed scheme. I