Wool Corp. a ‘threat’

Press, 18 September 1976, Page 10

Wool Corp. a ‘threat’

The Wool Marketing Corporation is seen by the president of the Federation of Wool Merchants (Mr B. Redding, of Gore) as being a threat to the existence of his members, who buy wool privately or directly from growers. "The greatest single threat before us, and I say this respectfully, is the Wool Marketing Corporation.” Mr Redding told the federation’s annual conference in Invercargill yesterday.

“I have the greatest reaped for the corporation and its administrators — as do all of us in the federation — but I realise that the corporation cannot completely fulfil the role for which it was intended without the ultimate trump card, acquisition. That is what the corporation was created for . . . They must finally fulfil their destiny . . . “Basically, 80 per cent

of the New Zealand greasy clip is channelled through the auction system and this might be said to have a reasonable degree of flow control. If the remaining 20 per cent were subjected to similar treatment, then rationalisation comes closer to reality. As long as this 20 per cent is allowed to remain free we, as a major part of it, can only go on frustrating the cause of the corporation. Regardless of how helpful we endeavour to be, we must remain an unwanted element as far as the corporation is concerned.

“Obviously, total acquisition leads to more orderly, regimented control — this cannot be disputed — but the inherent disadvantages of acquisition outweigh this single benefit.

“However, paradoxically, the corporation has seen fit amid a blaze

of visual and written advertising to set up yet another splinter group, the extra choice scheme, as an additional means of disposal.

“It is my belief that the term ‘private buyer’ has done a lot of harm to our cause. The word ‘private’ itself implies secrecy, but there is nothing very secret or furtive about our activities. Every day over every province, federation members’ trucks and cars, bearing their companies’ names, travel far and wide. We are ‘direct buyers’ with nothing to hide.

“The New Zealand wool grower is one of the best informed in the world and his market information and advice is of the highest order. It is the grower who elects to sell by direct treaty. He is under no compulsion to do so, and it is he, and he alone, who makes the choice.”