WoolPoll participation rate drops

According to data provided by Australian Wool Innovation, 9530 voters of an eligible 46,541 voters had their say in this year's WoolPoll.

An additional 81 voters cast invalid votes.

It represents a total participation rate of 20.48 per cent.

In 2018, 13,506 valid voters had their say out of a potential 47,107, a total participation rate of 29 per cent.

While the number of valid participating voters was lower in 2015 at 12,912, the participation rate was still higher at 32pc.

Levy payers last month voted to retain the existing 1.5pc levy rate, rejecting calls from AWI for growers to support a 2pc rate.

Before preferences were allocated, the result showed 47pc of votes supported the 1.5pc rate.

READ MORE:

The new data shows the 1.5pc rate was the most popular option for all states but it had its highest support in the ACT and Tasmania with 64pc and 56pc of the vote respectively.

The 2pc rate received its highest rates of support from NSW and Queensland, where it received of 31.15pc and 30.44pc of the vote.

Out of the five available levy options- 0pc, 1pc, 1.5pc, 2pc and 2.5pc- the 2.5pc rate was the least popular with all states with the lowest support rate of 0.96pc from Western Australia and the highest 2.6pc from NSW.

Looking at the number of votes available as opposed to the number of voters, participation was still at a low compared to data from the last seven WoolPolls.

Of an available 1,341, 528 votes, just 592,186 valid votes were returned, a rate of 44.14pc valid votes.

In 2018, there were 993, 575 votes, equalling 56pc of the available votes.