Is it $500 million or $369 million? What’s really been spent on wool promotion

The nation’s wool body has challenged the $500 million marketing spend. So who’s right?

A battle over exactly how much has been spent on wool marketing has emerged after the nation’s peak grower body said it had ballooned to more than $500m.

Australian Wool Innovation has taken umbrage at claims by Wool Producers Australia that $500m has been spent to try to promote the fibre over the past decade but prices had not increased.

In an open letter to growers, WPA president Steve Harrison said growers should have a say in how their levies were spent, which were currently allocated 60 per cent to marketing and 40 per cent to research/on farm work.

“Future generations of wool growers are relying on us to make the right decisions at this time,” Mr Harris said.

AWI chairman Jock Laurie said marketing spends were detailed in each year’s annual report and the WPA figure was incorrect.

“Over the past 10 years, it is $369m not $500m as some have claimed,” Mr Laurie said.

“That (spend) includes all of our overseas staff and expenses overseas, all of our marketing team domestically and our campaigns.”

Mr Laurie said global economic circumstances were “the big driver of price”.

“The other drivers are supply and demand – you’ve got energy costs, you’ve got all of

those other factors and the slow recovery coming out of Covid is really driving economies down, which is very much affecting the price for wool,” he said.

Marketing was spent on defending the reputation of wool as a natural fibre against synthetics and the right to grow wool as well as increasing sales, Mr Laurie said.

The WPA has been critical of AWI’s marketing, and said it has done little to lift the price of wool, backed up by a report it had commissioned from Episode 3 to look at the impact of marketing.

This week, two wool grower consultative committees will consider the WPA report as part of its feedback on the next strategic plan for AWI for the next three years.

More than 40 wool grower representatives will attend a two-day session to give input in the new strategic plan which comes into effect on July 1 this year.