Led by Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, AWI was questioned for more than two and a half hours on its corporate management and operating costs outside of what it actually spends on research.

It emerged the company's new chief executive officer, Craig Welsh, enjoys a salary of more than $500,000 a year, and despite being a relatively small company with an operating income of about $50m a year there are more than three company secretaries and 180 staff, which chew up about $12m every year in the company's income.

An estimated $20m is spent on actual research, according to Mr Welsh, while a special taskforce established in 2004 to respond to animal rights attacks on the sheep and wool industry has cost more than $3.6m.

"A lot of woolgrowers are concerned about what we've got to show for the hundreds of millions of dollars that's been spent, and especially the attitude of "see you in court"…." Senator Heffernan said.

Senator Heffernan levelled a barrage of questions to AWI board member, Chris Abell, Mr Welsh, and company secretary Les Targ over the appointment of one of the company secretaries and in-house legal counsel, Christopher Chapman, who previously ran a brothel, set up an account under a fake name and was named as an "unsuitable person to be practicing law in NSW" by the Law Society of NSW.

It was confirmed the board was aware of Mr Chapman's past and convictions when he was appointed by AWI about five years ago, but Mr Abell said Mr Chapman was seen to be suitable for the position and his qualifications were examined in light of his past conviction.

While Senator Heffernan alleged clips being developed by AWI had a failure rate and were therefore not going to work commerically, Mr Abell argued to the contrary that the clips had been through some succesful trials and were still in the development phase.

He acknowledged though that the long term solution to a mulesing alternative was in fact in genetics, or breeding sheep which don't need to be mulesed.

AWI representatives took up to 20 questions on notice and will have to provide the committee with a detailed costing on media and legal bills, staff salaries, research expenditure and more.