John Monaghan: Wool Alliance Independent Chair on the push to strengthen the wool industry in New Zealand

There's a push to make the wool industry the backbone of New Zealand again. 

A cross-sector alliance has been formed between four major organisations, aimed at driving economic growth and consolidating efforts. 

It wants the industry to deliver decent returns and remove existing duplications. 

Independent Chair John Monaghan told Mike Hosking the price of wool is substantially increasing right now. 

He says synthetics have been the biggest opposition to wool, but thinks the time is right for the natural product. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To the farmer where we have a new venture for
our wool industry which is exciting. It's a cross sector alliance.
It's between four major organizations. The plan to live a
decent returns for a quote cornerstone of New Zealand's identity.
John Monahan is the independent chair of this new wall
alliance and is with us. John morning, Good morning, Mike.
This strong wool story is an interesting and troubled one.

(00:21):
Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, the last few decades had been a traveling time
from the wall sector for an industry was one sort
of the backbone in New Zealand too. An industry is
almost limps are wrong today.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
So what you want to do is generate greater demand,
lifting value and avoiding costing duplication, all of which is good.
Why now and more importantly how.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
The four organizations have been working together for some time
and when you look at I came in and looked
at the industry some months ago. I've only been in
the role two months. But when you look at it,
it's very complex. There's a lot of duplication and there's
some obvious games to be made by cooperation. By having
one voice called the New Zealand Wall industry. So these
groups are working well together the prizes to have a

(01:04):
model in place that is market focused and will promote
New Zealand wool and eventually bring a lot better returns
back to the New zealandraft.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is everyone equally invested? I mean one of the players's
Beef and Lamber. Beef and Lamb interested in wool.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Beef and Lamb joined up two weeks ago. Their remit
is for sheep, meat and beef. But no they have
a levy vote coming up in twenty twenty seven. We
thought it's very important we work alongside them because ultimately
farmers are going to have to back their own industry
with some form of levy. And it's good to be
working with Beef and Lamb and they are fully engaged
with us.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
So how do you sell strong wall to a will
that doesn't really want it anymore? Is it just carpets
or is it so much more than that?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Right now, the price of wool is increasing substantial and
it's the same old It's a bit of a China
story because synthetics have been the biggest opposition to wool.
But we have a wonderful product here right now that
there's not a big inventory of war and I think
it's a natural product and the time is right.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
So if you got the demand thing, so I've just
supplied demand. So so you're not into strong will at
the moment because the market's no good. But if the
market did get good, would you suddenly run out of
people who are into strong wool and could supply.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I believe that it's very much the case. Recently, Minister
Mark Patterson and more Impact were in China and they
see prices rising at auctions through until the Chinese New Year.
When you look beyond that, like when I know what
you pay for a jersey, right, but if you buy
a three hundred dollars jersey, the poor of gud is
probably only getting ten percent of that. I understand it

(02:39):
would only take a ten percent lift in a mid
range carpet to deliver one hundred percent higher return to
the gray on the farm.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Wow, but people are people into conpets though. See look
at that Bremworth situation. Bremworth tried will it just didn't
work for them.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah no, but there's lots of I've like I said,
I'll the same once again. I've been on board for
two months. I've been very presently surprised on the upside
with the amount of innovation that's happening in the wall industry.
There are lots of niche things happen, but it's not
an industry answer. And that's what this venture is about.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
What's your timeline? When do I get you back on here?
You give me some good news, tangible good.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
News, tangible good news. Hope to have a model in
place by twenty twenty six, after grow our engagement and
other engagement, and have a fully funded model operating in
twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Fantastic. Go well, John, appreciate it, and I wish you
the best, John Monahan, who's the chair of the Wall Alliance.
And the very good news this morning is I will
be here in twenty twenty six and indeed in twenty
twenty seven. And I'm not going to tell you what
I pay for a jersey, because you're just going to
go for more. From the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live
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(03:47):
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