OPINION: Something popped up on Parliament's select committee calendar this week: Briefing on the New Zealand Wool Industry.
Surprisingly, no one in the Newshub office was keen to cover it. They were all wondering if I was genuinely serious in wanting to cover it and flabbergasted when I said I was.
You see, I'm a knitter. An amateur one, but I can churn out scarves, beanies, and mittens. I'm currently working on my first-ever baby cardigan.
I have one rule: I only knit with natural fibres. I refuse to use anything synthetic, acrylic, or plastic which adds to the problem of microplastic.
Hence why I have an interest in the state of the New Zealand wool industry and its future.
If the attendance in Primary Production select committee room is anything to go by, the wool industry is in a dire state. No one was there. No members of the public, and no other journalists.
There were just MPs, officials, and four people submitting: Wool Impact's Mike Allen and Ross McIsaac, Wools of NZ's John McWhirter, and the Campaign for Wool's Tom O'Sullivan.
There are two parts of the wool industry: strong wool and fine wool. Strong wool is the course wool that is usually scratchy on the skin, and it makes up around 85 percent of the sector. Fine wool is typically merino and that's the part of the industry that's doing well (you'll be aware of Ice Breaker, All Birds, etc).
The strong wool industry is what the committee's briefing focused on. It isn't in a good place. Demand for strong wool has been declining since the 1980s and there's been an over-supply of it ever since.
Too much wool with not enough people buying it means the price of it is in the doldrums and it's cheaper for many sheep farmers to bin the wool instead of selling it.
There's no powerful wool cooperative like dairy's Fonterra, meaning they can't leverage assets to reinvest in growing the sector so it languishes with minimal investment.
There are a few initiatives from the Ministry for Primary Industries which aim to create innovative new ways to use wool. The building sector is one where there's a lot of potential.
But other than that, it's up to small individual companies and manufacturers to innovate and find a way to add value. There are a few success stories like Honest Wolf and Torpedo7's woollen kayak.
Overall though, the sector needs reinvigoration - the question is: how?
All the ingredients are there: the wool, the appetite for natural fibres, the concern of microplastics, the want for locally made goods. But no one knows how to make the cake.
It's an incredibly versatile product. It's fire-resistant, biodegradable, breathable, renewable, stain-resistant, and good for those with allergies. Yet we still aren't utilising it properly.
The MPs listening to the briefing asked questions and were concerned about the sector but there was no real passion to realise the full potential of the strong wool sector.
The only suggestion came from Labour's Anna Lorck. She wants to merge the three wool lobby groups who were in front of the committee so they could be a stronger voice for the sector.
Not only is that patronising and unhelpful but it misses the point. The sector doesn't need a bigger lobby group, it needs a Government to act and back a plan for a strong wool renaissance.
Because it has the potential to be a huge New Zealand success story.
Lloyd Burr is a Newshub political reporter.
