WAFarmers president Mike Norton, who was present at the 2004 industry meeting when the decision was supposedly made, claims no date was ever set.

"We never agreed to phase out mulesing by 2010 at that meeting in Sydney," Mr Norton said.

"We did however agree to put an accreditation system in place, by a given date, for contractors and farmers who perform surgical mulesing, which we achieved with time to spare.

"We also agreed to look to alternatives to surgical mulesing in the lead-up to 2010, but never to phase the current practise out by this date."

At the time, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) was confident it would have viable alternatives available in time.

"AWI said they would put more money into research and development for mulesing alternatives," Mr Norton said.

"Although some at the meeting were concerned there might not be alternatives available by 2010, AWI were confident one in particular would deliver positive outcomes.

"It was put to us quite strongly that we needed to signify a timeline when something would be resolved.

"We agreed that 2010 would be a suitable timeline to come up with proven alternatives, which we could then present to growers."

The idea was to review the situation in 2010, but the deadline to end mulesing was never set.

"It was all about finding alternatives to mulesing," Mr Norton said.

"But as soon as the meeting ended, two delegates went to the media telling them we had agreed to phase out mulesing by 2010.

"For whatever reason AWI didn't correct what has become a very important issue, as they were confident they would have alternatives, but so far haven't delivered."