2007 News
Letter to the Editor (The Land) in response to Merino Harakiri (6 Sept)
10 September 2007
The Editor,
When will Mr Olsson stop talking the wool industry down and start backing the vast majority of growers who are responsive to the needs of their international customers and want to solve the problem of mulesing?
Mr Olsson has done nothing but criticise the work undertaken by the industry to develop alternatives to mulesing, ignoring that he was actually part of the national coalition of woolgrower groups that unanimously made the decision in 2004 to cease mulesing by 2010. He then went out of his way to sign a Declaration of Commitments to international retailers a year later, which affirmed the phase out and committed to research into alternatives.
His claims that animal rights groups should be ignored are equally hypocritical, when it was he that travelled to the US to do a deal with PETA, against the advice and warnings of the industry and the Australian Government.
No one in the Australian wool industry is talking about legislation to ban mulesing other than Mr Olsson. The 2010 phase out of mulesing has always been and will remain a commitment from an industry to its customers. Make no mistake, these retailers are watching our actions very closely and to walk away from 2010 would be a breach of trust by the Australian wool industry.
Alternatives are progressing well, with 350 properties trialling clips this spring, while the development of two intra-dermal treatments delivered by needless injector continues - one by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and one by a private firm.
It is also evident that stud breeders and woolgrowers are making very good progress towards breeding barer breech sheep that are far less susceptible to fly strike.
The only confusion in the industry is that which is being generated by Mr Olsson. Every letter to the editor or rumour he spreads undermines growers’ investment of levy dollars and takes the focus away from countering extremist groups, and working with retailers to sell our product to the world.
Robert Pietsch
Chairman
Operations Group of the Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce