Australias main woolgrower organisations, which apart from two state bodies, have opposed calls to freeze stockpile sales, said the decision was produced by a rattled government to shore up sagging support in rural areas.

"The Hanson factor, the Queensland election and the fact were heading toward (National) polls and heavy behind-the-scenes lobbying means theyve come out with this decision, flying in the face of demands from industry," an official with one main industry group said.

"Its quite unbelievable," he said.

The official was referring to the turmoil created in Australias ruling Liberal-National Party coalition by the emergence of populist politician Pauline Hanson whose One Nation Party scored 23 per cent of the vote and 11seats in the recent Queensland state election.

And the main industry bodies disputed the freeze would achieve the higher wool prices that the policy was designed to produce.

The freeze will take about nine per cent of wool off the market in a narrow micron range of coarse wool, Ben Russell of the New South Wales Farmers Association said.

"(This) will not significantly influence prices," he said.

More fundamentally, the decision was returning Australia to a similar market-control regime to that which produced the the reserve price scheme, which was abandoned in 1991. The European experience in farm commodity stockpiles was that such systems simply did not work, he said.

"The industry has been making a fairly difficult transition to deregulation ever since (1991) and cabinet has just thrown us back about six years," he said.

"Its a bad decision. Its the government imposing a populist decision on industry. Theres a clear view in the industry that the stockpile freeze idea is the wrong way to go,"Russell said.

Five hundred delegates from across NSW voted on the freeze proposal two weeks ago and threw it out, he said.

Industry consternation has been running high since the surprise announcement by primary industries and energy minister John Anderson on Tuesday night that stockpile sales would be frozen for the rest of the 1998/99 season.

"Wool Council of Australia expressed extreme disbelief in how the government could meddle in the affairs of a A$4 billion industry and put at risk the future of Australias wool growers," council president Rod Thirkell-Johnston said.

The head of the wool industrys National grower body described the decision as "purely political, economically absurd and poorly researched".

The government would expect a lift in the wool price on Wednesday but could not guarantee any sustainable improvement in price while the uncertainty created in the international marketplace would be substantial, he said.

The wool market fell about eight per cent in resumed auction sales onTuesday, before the freeze announcement.

One woolbroker said many believed the decision would not prop up prices because wools problems ran much deeper than could be solved by a sales freeze.

Australias wool stockpile now stands at 1.12 million bales, down from its peak of 4.7 million bales in early 1991.

Before the freeze, Wool International, the statutory authority charged with selling off the stockpile by December 2000, was required to sell between 90,000 and 350,000 bales a quarter.