Shearers seek greener pasture

DUNEDIN - A crisis is looming in the sheep industry as shearers leave New Zealand in droves, heading for the more lucrative markets of Australia and Europe.

The president of the Shearing Contractors Association, Peter Lyon, said the loss of expert shearers would be one of the main points for discussion when the association met in Wellington this week.

The association would also discuss whether it was the farmers or the buyers of wool who should be paying for the shearing of sheep.

"We will have a discussion paper looking at whether the wool industry should be run like the meat industry. It is the buyers, the meat processors, who pay for the killing and butchering of stock.

"In the same way, we are suggesting that it might now be necessary for the wool processors and buyers to pay for the shearing, rather than laying all the costs at the farmers' door."

Mr Lyon said whatever the outcome it seemed fairly certain that shearers' pay rates would have to increase if there was to be any chance of keeping them in New Zealand.

There was no firm estimate of just how many shearers had left, "but I can say on just one day last week, there were seven at Dunedin airport alone, all heading for different places."

The only thing that had stopped the situation from reaching a crisis was that shearers were now shearing only half the 90 million sheep they were a few years ago.

"But this has been a good season and I have been on the phone for two or three hours most nights asking neighbouring contractors if they have any shearers to spare."

Jason Davis has shorn overseas but has returned to Balclutha to join father Ron's contract shearing business. He said shearers in Australia were earning between $1200 and $1300 a week and needed to work only five days a week. Shearers were earning about half that amount in New Zealand now.

- NZPA