Off the sheep's back: the state's role in New Zealand's wool industry

Abstract

For much of its history since European settlement, the New Zealand economy has depended upon agriculture (particularly the foreign exchange earnings from pastoral products like wool). This thesis argues that there is a long-term shift in political and economic power (influence and control) in the economy away from the agricultural sector, a shift in power within the agricultural sector away from the traditional pastoral industries and a shift in power within the pastoral industries away from farmers. As well as illustrating this shift in power, from on to off the sheep's back, this thesis analyses the operation of New Zealand's quasi-governmental Producer Boards. The changing distribution of power in the New Zealand economy creates pressure for change in the Boards' functions. Any lessons that are drawn from a particular pastoral industry (like wool) must recognise the distinctiveness of the different pastoral and agricultural industries. Distinctive features of the wool industry include the extent of the swings in intervention into sheep farming (intervention was minimal before the mid-1960s, intensified during the 1960s and 1970s and was radically reduced after 1985), that the Wool Board is now mostly deregulated, the low ministerial control of the wool industry and the changing demands of the input and output sectors and wool growers. Analysis of these features demonstrates the ability of incremental reform to generate policy change. For example, by altering the distribution of the benefits and costs of the Wool Board's activities, a change in one of the Board's functions underpinned the adjustment of other functions. This thesis elaborates the changing structure of economic power and the influence of changing economic power upon State intervention. The analysis then illustrates how intervention shapes who exercises control over the quasi-governmental Producer Boards and the uses that this control can be put to.