It's 1955 and in outback Australia, Foley, a gun shearer, joins a new shearing team. He bunks in with Old Garth, a former top shearer who is now a drunkard and who mirrors a possible future for Foley. As the shearing season progresses, the shearing team battle with a grossly inadequate shearers' cook; Old Garth becomes ill; and Foley befriends the grazier's daughter. When the 'prosperity bonus' of a few pennies per hundred sheep shorn is withdrawn from the shearers' entitlements, they go on strike. Foley and his team confront the non-union labor brought in by the graziers to complete the shearing.