AWI reveals shearing technology centre plans to Senate

Speaking in Senate estimates on Tuesday night, AWI chairman Jock Laurie told the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee that the peak body had plans to develop a centre based at the Falkiner Research Station near Conargo, NSW.

Mr Laurie said the proposed centre could highlight some of the technology and also provide a location to carry out some training.

"We've still got to develop that," he said.

"We think that could be a way forward."

The revelation comes off the back of an increasing number of industry projects looking at how technology can make shearing less labour intensive and safer amidst worker shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ongoing shearer shortage is considered one of the biggest challenges faced by Australia's wool industry at present, with border restrictions meaning the loss of the New Zealand wool harvesting workforce that have in the past been a critical source of labour.

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Technology sparking interest throughout the shearing sector includes the independently funded Shear Anywhere upright shearing platform developed by NSW and Victorian fine wool producers Burbidge Farms, which is designed to the physical strain on shearers and also improve safety within the shearing shed.

Mr Laurie told Senate estimates that they wanted to investigate the Shear Anywhere platform further.

"There will be other shearing platforms and technology, more development work needs to be done," he said.

"We feel that we probably need to get that into our own hands and work away at it.

"The first thing is if we're promoting it, it has to be safe so we've got to be confident in ourselves that it is safe and from a work health and safety aspect that we're not doing anything to create issues.

"We're looking over the next few months to develop that, it's not developed yet but there's also accommodation down there which provides us an opportunity to provide accommodation for people that we can train in this area, so normal shearer training but also potentially training people on shearer platforms if they turn out to be a very good option for the industry."

Mr Laurie said a group from AWI would visit the Falkiner Research Station again next week to make sure the facility was "up to speed" before looking at what investment could be made.

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