Fears for future of shearing in Queensland

That's a fear confronting seedstock producers such as Mitchell's Nigel Brumpton, who is seeing the impact both on his stud operations and in his commercial business.

As well as having less clients bidding for his rams, the family shears around 25,000 sheep at Mitchell and Cunnamulla, which takes around five weeks.

"It's been ongoing for a while but it got worse in the last three years - Jobkeeper buggered everything," Mr Brumpton said. "They said, we don't need a job."

For one of his clients and fourth generation woolgrower, Hughenden producer Bob Little, it's something he's seen before, but this time around, he's not sure how it will be resolved.

He and his brother Buck Little went into the shearing business thanks to the wool price depression of the early 1970s, and he recalls the appreciation of clients when their teams came along and did a quick clean job.

"It was struggling, the industry - one bloke only had three for four shearers on, and if one wasn't going to the toilet, they were coming back.

"He was shearing 200 a day and he said, you fellows come along and shore 1400 a day.

"We got to Friday lunchtime and he said, that'll do you - they were flat out.

"We shore over 14,000 sheep in nine days, and he said, they were my happy days, with you doing my shearing.

"They're supposed to be happy days. It's like your harvest, but people say, I dread my shearing."

The two men are credited with being the first contractors to have women on the board, as rouseabouts firstly, to fill a void when someone wasn't well, and with introducing the ubiquitous boombox to the shed.

"The young fellows, it made them happy, but it had to be that loud it deafened Bob," Mr Little said. "I asked them once to turn it down a bit and I thought they were all going to pull out so I shut up."

He said pride and self-discipline were his keys for success, but he's at a loss on how to bring that back in the modern-day environment.

A lack of long-term goals, no understanding of how to manage money, and a more selfish society were some of the problems he listed as affecting the industry, along with drugs.

"No-one looks after anyone anymore," he said. "I say, what happened to your mate. Oh, I don't know where he is. We always knew where our mates were."

Barcaldine's David Kerrigan AM spent 20 years in the sheds, followed up by a career with Queensland Health, some of it as an Alcohol and Other Drug Service coordinator and he says drugs aren't a recent problem.

"The problems were starting to come in 20 years ago - they should have been addressed then," he said.

"You don't want to be shearing next to people filled with pills. It's a dangerous job and that chased some people out of the industry."

He said a span of years where there weren't many incentives to shear, and prohibitive costs for the tools of the trade, had added to the problem.

"You knew at some stage there'd be a shortage," he said. "Most shearers now are really young or really old, you can see that gap in the middle."

Mr Kerrigan sees a multi-faceted solution, beginning with having the right people in charge, that will fight for change.

"Strict bosses were the best - all workplaces need a structure that you can stick to," he said.

He's a fan of incorporating shearing with other agriculture-related work to end up with a profession that offers variety, with good money as the incentive, telling the story of a uni student coming into a shed at Longreach when he was working there, saying he wanted to be the gun.

"And he was," Mr Kerrigan said. "People like that, that you want to be around, really help, and they don't have to be young."

Using the profession as a way of taking a paid holiday was another attraction for Mr Kerrigan and his mates.

"We'd go down to Victoria every year - we loved it," he said. "You'd work hard for five days then check out the Great Ocean Road, the Grampians, Melbourne, you name it."

He thought exchange program incentives, getting property owners involved, could work, and advocated for making the profession more attractive to women, who took things in quicker.

"It was a fight to get separate showers and toilets, some privacy, for both men and women - you've got to have things like that, everyone does these days," he said.

All these issues and more have been challenging people like AgForce Sheep Wool and Goats president Stephen Tully for some years now.

He said people were telling him it was getting back to the bad old days of 'us and them', thanks to the imbalance in the supply of workers.

"We're trying to get people who want to work, rather than people who knock off whenever it suits them," he said. "We're trying desperately to get communication happening to find out what's most important for people."

That involves getting respect on both sides and Mr Tully said shearing contractor and trainer Carl Goodman was working with the Queensland Wool Technical Advisory Group to bring supply chain expertise together to solve the problem.

"There's no doubt some standards need improving, but we'll be working hard on this issue for a long time," Mr Tully said.

"I think ultimately visas will have to be a major part of the solution - there's just not enough Australians who want to do the work.

"In the meantime, it's concerning to hear that people are still getting out of wool."