TODAY'S Australian Wool Innovation board election is just the latest in a long series of dramatic meetings in the wool industry's tumultuous history, as BRIAN CLANCY well knows
If Australia has 30,000 wool growers you can bet there will be 30,000 ideas on how to market and promote wool.
Which is why when it comes to spending $40-$50 million of grower-levy funding you are never going to get unanimity.
And in times when prices are down those disagreements can get very bloodied.
Today's election in Perth for control of the Australian Wool Innovation will be no exception.
Of the following, I have attended all but the famous Bill Gunn Hamilton meeting and can recall some of the more defining and dramatic moments.
HAMILTON 1963
WILLIAM Gunn, chairman of the then Australian Wool Board, asks a grower meeting for two shillings and four pence a bale to support wool promotion.
Instead he was pelted with tomatoes, eggs and flour.
But Bill was a warrior and kept talking and debating until 1am.
Several months later growers agreed to the levy.
MELBOURNE 1974
PRIOR to a meeting of the International Wool Textile Organisation in the Southern Cross Hotel, while many growers were sceptical, most of the world's wool processors were opposed to a reserve floor price scheme.
But wool prices were on their knees and some fast talking between Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Australian Wool chairman Alf Maiden convinced the processors to agree.
The floor price was implemented three months later.
MT GAMBIER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, 1982
AT THE annual meeting of the then Wool Council of Australia, its president Ian McLachlan and Australian Wool Corporation chairman David Asimus locked horns about who had ultimate control over the corporation - the board or the growers.
It was a debate that went unresolved.
ALBURY, NSW, 1988
WOOL Council of Australia conducted a fiery debate about a 30 per cent lift in the reserve floor price from 645c/kg clean.
NSW growers wanted 900 cents while the Victorians, like ABARE, wanted 800 cents.
John Elliott, the then head of Elders, had lobbied for 1000 cents.
A month later the Australian Wool Corporation set it at the ill-fated 870c/kg.
ROMA, QUEENSLAND, 1990
THE Eastern European economies had collapsed, wool production was at a record high, the wool stocks were rising and the reserve floor price scheme was in trouble.
At the Wool Council annual meeting, AWC economist Bob Richardson broke ranks to suggest that not only an 870 cent floor but a much lower 700 cents were unsustainable.
Nevertheless, the AWC and the Federal Government lowered the floor to 700 cents.
The stockpile peaked at 4.8 million bales and the Government-backed stockpile debt shot to $2.8 billion. Richardson was vindicated.
OAKLANDS JUNCTION 1991
IN WHAT could be described as a very angry aftermath to the collapse of the reserve price scheme nine months earlier, growers wanted "blood" at the Australian Wool Corporation's annual meeting. The normally unflappable and placid John Landy, who headed up wool's research arm, said he couldn't recall a more frightening meeting.
GOULBURN, NSW, 1998
AFTER two Government inquiries - Vines and Garnaut - following the collapse of the reserve price scheme, growers were becoming increasingly impatient with the policies to sell stockpiled wool and the $27 million Red Dress generic wool promotion campaign.
At the annual meeting of the Australian Wool Research and Promotion Organisation growers moved a vote of no confidence in the board, effectively leading to its removal and another inquiry, this time chaired by Ian McLachlan.
HAY, NSW, 2002
AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation, chaired by Maree McCaskill and led by controversial managing director Col Dorber, opted to spill all six elected positions on the board.
An election ticket of five, headed by Ian McLachlan and backed by WoolProducers, challenged successfully.
The challengers campaigned on the need to restore accountability and corporate governance to AWI.
