Mr Agar said AWI had a “toxic” culture with poor governance and should be replaced with a new smaller organisation that was focused on on-farm research.

Mr Merriman has attracted considerable criticism recently including for his disclosure to a Senate estimates committee this week that he held about 20,000 proxy votes of the 90,000 votes at an AWI board election, with discretion on how most of those proxy votes should be allocated.

Nationals Senator Barry O’Sullivan said Mr Merriman should have declined the proxy votes and AWI should prevent board members from holding proxy votes in elections for board members.

Mr Agar said Mr Merriman’s possession of tens of thousands of open proxy votes gave him the power to decide who was elected to the AWI board.

He said woolgrowers should stop being apathetic and decide themselves who was elected to the AWI board.

Mr Agar also said he was concerned at the AWI’s failure to ban mulesing of lambs when many buyers of merino wool apparel were saying it was a problem.

AWI was also “anti-science” and was not committed to using genetics technology to advance the wool industry, Mr Agar said.

Winslow merino producer Brendan Finnigan said Mr Merriman represented the wool industry’s “old guard” that rejected the scientific advances and “think it is all in the eye of the beholder.”

He said all other livestock industries had accepted the gains that could made with genetics, Mr Finnigan said.

He said the AWI was also “giving the customer the single finger on mulesing” and the issue had to be resolved.

He said the decision by many woolgrowers to give their open proxy votes to Mr Merriman was a sad reflection on the industry.

Mr Finnigan said Mr Merriman’s leadership style was similar to that of American president Donald Trump.