“That’s not our industry, that’s not us.”
Central Otago’s Dion Morrell — whose involvement in the shearing industry spans 50 years — is referring to the recently-released footage from animal rights organisation Peta, which alleged sheep were being mistreated on New Zealand farms.
Mr Morrell (61) a respected figure in the industry, said he was angered by what he saw in the footage, as he expected anyone else who viewed it would also be.
“No farmer in New Zealand would tolerate that in their shed … but that’s not indicative of our industry, our industry is better than that. We’re not about that, farmers aren’t about that,” he said.
It was estimated about 130 million-140 million minutes of work happened in shearing sheds throughout New Zealand in any given year, and the footage was a minuscule amount of that, he said.
But it was still not acceptable, and he was disappointed that an entire industry was potentially being judged by the actions of just a few. “99.999% of all work that happens in New Zealand is done by people that care about the animals, love their job and do a really great job,” he said.
He believed the footage highlighted a bigger problem, and that was the need for a better structure and funding model in the country for industry training.
Wool was an export industry without any funded training in the shearing industry, and that was a huge issue.
Despite recently selling the shearing contracting business which he ran with his wife Gabriela, Mr Morrell remained passionate about the only industry that he had ever worked in.
Originally from Pukerau, he candidly acknowledged he “didn’t go good at school” and left at 15 to go shearing, having already spent time in sheds. Nearly five decades later he still felt fortunate that he found a job he enjoyed.
It was a different time in those early years of shearing. Sheep were much smaller — “I’d hate to be a learner now” — and there was a much greater emphasis on wool.
He had no great desire to transition to contracting, and did not ever see himself in that role, but a few body problems saw him sit down with his wife to discuss the future.
When Snow Quinn asked if they wanted his run, based around Omakau, Poolburn and the Maniototo, they took it on straight away. That was in 2006, and they continued to grow the business.
To grow, they had to buy other runs, as the influx of dairy cattle in the 2000s saw a lot of sheep disappear, just as was happening recently with forest conversions, he said.
In 2009, the couple moved to Alexandra and bought Wedderburn-based Mt Ida Shearing. The following year, they bought their first quarters, the old Poolburn pub, which they used for the next six years as a base, kitchen and accommodation. They also reopened it as the local pub for a few years.
In 2012, they bought Heriot-based Blair Johnston Shearing and in 2014 and 2015, they began to buy and rent houses in Alexandra to use as shearing quarters, as their young crew increasingly preferred to live in town.
The Poolburn quarters were sold in 2016 and Dion Morrell Shearing moved to Alexandra to a base on Earnscleugh Rd, which included building a meeting place and commercial kitchen.
Two years later, the business expanded again with the acquisition of Robertson Shearing, plus quarters, in Lawrence. In 2019, they decided to fill working gaps between seasons by buying a Northland run, which provided an option for staff to have a working holiday while enjoying diving at northern beaches. That same year, they bought Roxburgh-based business Michelle Shearing.
For the first two years of contracting, Mr Morrell continued to shear on the run before realising his business had got too big and he needed to concentrate solely on running it.
While he knew the industry, he admitted he did not have any of the all-important communication skills at the start. Describing himself as somewhat of an introvert, he said it was a case of learning as he went.
“When I started, I wasn’t much of a talker. Some people would say I’m a bit of a yapper now,” he quipped. “That’s the job, you have to be,” he said.
And it was connections that was key to running a successful business. Being connected to his staff — which could number up to 100 at peak —meant the ability to pick up if something was up. “You get to know people that well, you can tell if something’s on their mind.”
It was also about being organised and remaining calm — “you don’t make good decisions when you’re worked up” — and endeavouring to constantly grow, not just as a person but also the skillsets of the wider team.
The early days of contracting were a big change for someone who was “not an office person”. Used to being organised, he was now the organiser, and that was a skill that he lacked initially but fortunately, his wife was “more organised than I’ll ever be”.
Gabriela was raised on a farm in Switzerland and worked as a primary school teacher for a few years. It was during her OE when she was looking for work that she ended up in the shearing industry “by default”. She met her future husband in a shearing shed in the outback of Australia when she was wool handling.
While that teaching background meant she had leadership qualities, she was not used to Kiwi culture and the shearing industry, so that in itself was a learning curve.
Her role in the business was mainly administration, health and safety, and organising of kitchen and accommodation, and the couple ran the home-based business together.
Recently, the couple decided it was time for a change, and they wanted to step back and let new blood take the business further. The new structure saw Lawrence-based contractor Jock Martin and his partner Marie taking on DMS’s Lawrence, South Otago and Southland-based clients, and Alexandra-based shearer Scott Cameron and his partner Ashleigh taking the rest of the run.
Coincidentally, Mr Morrell used to work for Mr Martin, and was the first person to give Mrs Schmidt-Morrell a job when she came to New Zealand from Switzerland, via Australia, and was best man at their wedding.
Much would stay the same in terms of the running of the business, the staff and the clients, and Mr Morrell would continue to be involved in a managerial role supporting Mr Cameron.
Asked what he thought the future of the industry was, Mr Morrell said it was hard to say, particularly given the current state of the economy. “I think the industry is still relevant, probably more so than ever. We’ve got to create more income for farmers at the other end,” he said.
Asked what the shearing industry needed, he said skills development was the priority, and he was also keen for some form of cadetship. The New Zealand Wool Board originally covered everything from training to marketing and research and development but, he felt that when farmers decided their levy money was better spent elsewhere, that was when a downward slide started.
Mr Morrell, along with Tom Wilson and Gavin Rowland, established Elite Wool Industry Training, which was now operating in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and France.
It had gone well but it was also user-pays, and there was definitely a need to get back to a funded model. “We can’t meet all the needs we need to meet,” he said.
There had never been a time more than now when skills were so important in the industry, he believed. When he was shearing, the sheep had a lot of Romney blood in them, they were smaller and very calm.
Today’s sheep were much bigger and stronger and shearers needed to be technically better when it came to handling them, not just physically but also mentally.
“The old Romneys were lazy, our footwork wasn’t so important. We got away with a lot — you don’t get away with anything now. They were quite forgiving, those old sheep.”
The problem was not attracting young people to the industry but ensuring they were skilled enough to do what they needed to do. And those in the industry, including contractors and farmers, needed to understand the value of training.
Mr Morrell sheared for 15 years — including making record attempts — before he did his first shearing course. “I couldn’t believe I waited so long. It took so much stress away,” he said.
He successfully competed in shearing competitions for many years and sheared various records, both on merinos and crossbred sheep.
A three-stand record, which he made with Rick Pivac and Chris Brooker in Lawrence in 1993, shearing 1856 crossbred ewes between them in nine hours, still stood.
At the time he embarked on record attempts, he was doing competition shearing — “that was my sport, we shore seven days a week — even if I wanted to do another sport, you haven’t got time”.
As his skill started to rise, he started to wonder how far he could go. He used the three-stand record attempt to see if he was good enough to have a crack at some solo records. Shortly after, he did two solo record attempts on crossbred ewes before taking a year off and then returning to do a merino ewe record at Tarras.
Asked for his competition highlights, Mr Morrell said it was a thrill to win the all-breeds national event at the Golden Shears, as he did not just want to specialise in one thing, and also winning the local merino shears in Alexandra.
Another highlight had been watching his wife and then 11-year-old daughter Charis represent Switzerland at the World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Invercargill in 2017.
The pint-sized woolhandler and her mother was one of the best stories from the championships and for their respective father and husband, it was “the best fun” to watch them.
A Swiss team had not previously been entered in the championships and when a potential team found itself with two shearers and no woolhandlers, it was decided 11-year-old Charis and her mother would make their debut.
Mr Morrell was involved in the sheep selection and preparation of those sheep during the championships and those behind the event — who wanted it to be the best shearing event in the world — were so proud with what they pulled off, he said.
With 5000 people at ILT Stadium Southland on the last night, he left happy and exhausted, returning straight to his hotel room and immediately falling asleep.
Of Mr Morrell’s eight children — he has three with Gabriela — three were working in the industry, including Charis who is based in Wairarapa and woolhandling on the North Island competition circuit.
Daughter Pagan was also a star at the world championships in Invercargill; she had the remarkable distinction of competing in both shearing and wool handling in the All Nations competition.
Her father said she had some “huge hurdles to jump through” — which included recovering from a serious vehicle crash in 2008 after which she spent five years receiving rehabilitation and physiotherapy treatment — and it was incredible what she had achieved.
While Pagan showed a strong interest in the industry from a young age, Mr Morrell’s youngest daughter Jelena (16) was not interested, and that did not bother her father at all. “It doesn’t matter, you have to love what you do,” he said.
Running a contracting business from home was all-consuming. The phone never stopped ringing and, in the peak of the pre-lamb season, he would be up about 4am, and try to be in bed by 8pm or 9pm. He joked he would probably still be answering the phone then if his wife had not told him to put it on silent.
Now as a past contractor, he worried about the mental welfare of other contractors mid-season, saying they tended to “tough it out”, even when they were exhausted.
While he remained connected to the industry, his phone was already ringing a little less and he quipped his first job might be “getting rid of some of this contractor’s weight”. His wife laughed that he had already proven to be “quite reluctant” to be in the house.
He had no regrets about his chosen career. “I’ve loved my time in the industry — people work their whole lives in jobs they aren’t happy with. I loved it straight away,” he said.
Mrs Schmidt-Morrell, who was looking forward to less pressure and less stress, said she was ready to do her own thing. She had started a foot reflexology business based in the Flow Space Yoga and Wellness Centre, and expanding her karate teaching.
Having purpose was something that was important to her; she loved natural health and karate. Previously, endeavouring to be a good employer and being involved with a natural fibre always had a lot of purpose for her.
With family still in Switzerland and siblings in Brazil and Iceland, travel also beckoned, and she and Charis would be representing Switzerland again at the World Shearing and Woolhandling Championships in Masterton next year.
“I’m looking forward to not having to go to karate at night, come home and the first thing you have to do is go into the office and just work. I love not having to do that,” she said.
sally.rae@odt.co.nz
