Wool review likely to cost $1.7m

WELLINGTON - The Wool Board is prepared to spend $1.7 million on its proposal for an independent review of strategic options for the wool sector's future, industry sources say.

The board is drafting terms of reference for the recently announced business development project. It would assess options available to farmers and the wool industry to define its direction and structure.

It wants an objective analysis of proposals from the industry to start in about three months, and to recommend strategic choices and priorities early next year.

If possible, the board wants the review wrapped up by the end of March and recommendations implemented before the end of next year.

Industry sources characterised the board's review plan as a "circuit-breaker" in several years of robust debate and political infighting in the sector over the role and structure of producer boards. The plan would allow a focus on specific strategies to turn around the long-term decline of wool revenues.

The board chairman, Bruce Munro, said the review had been made possible by delays in implementing the Government's producer board reform.

But a vocal critic of the board, former director Phil Verry, said his Wool Corporation company would seek legal advice on the board's "latest secret plan to waste a further $2 million on yet another consultant's report."

Mr Verry has unsuccessfully promoted an entrepreneurial plan to bypass the auction system and lift wool prices by $2 a kilogram, but has said he would want to have 70 per cent of the national clip. - NZPA