fiona lake news

The good news:  Tony Burke has just announced that due to public concern, there will be a 2 year delay on allowing the importation of beef from countries where BSE (Mad Cow) cases have been recorded.  (Clearly, the general public are brighter than those who thought this was a good idea.)

The bad news: the delay is so a ’risk assessment’ can be completed (presumably they mean an assessment of the  risk to the health of the Australian public & to livestock, or maybe it’s to assess the likely health of the Federal Labor government, if they allow this idiocy to go ahead?).  Firstly, what a waste of money (yet another report); and secondly- any risk is too large a risk.  Any time human beings, politics and large sums of money are combined, the risks are far greater than would otherwise be the case.

Save the cash Tony, and declare this stupid idea a dead dog.

Most of far western - southern/central Queensland has an average rainfall of around 6″ (150mm), but in Australia average rainfall figures are usually misleading.  In many years Queensland’s channel country only receives 1-2″ (25-50mm) and in other years they get 10-15″ or more (250-375mm).   Cattle stations in the channel country have had a fair old hiding over the last decade or so, with almost every year being way below average - and what rain did fall, fell in a number of very small amounts.  I.e. next to useless, for growing plants.  It’s just the occasional floodwater coming down creeks and rivers from the north and north east, that has kept these cattle stations functioning.

This year is a catch-up year.  Check out these amazing photographs taken on Morney Plains Station, on Agmates.  It’s a sea of water.  Even in very arid country, it pays to always put buildings on legs.  Here’s hoping all the cattle made it onto sand ridges.

Yuruga Native Plant Nursery, at Walkamin on the Atherton Tableland ( far north Queensland), has the most sensible garden watering advice I’ve read.  Watering plants thoroughly but as infrequently as possible would seem like common sense, to encourage healthy root growth (and thus, drought and wind-tolerate plants) and avoid wasting water. 

Unfortunately with shrinking backyards, busy lifestyles and shrinking numbers of farmers (and the increasing city/bush chasm), basic plant-growing knowledge (whether food or decorative) is an increasingly scarce commodity.  It’s amazing how many people will either water plants every day (which during the tropical wet season, also encourages leaf pests and diseases, such as fungal diseases) or water infrequently, but only in small amounts and/or in inappropriate locations (eg a single little dripper close to the tree trunk).  Not to mention those who put sprinklers on between 8am and 5pm, when the vast majority of the water is wasted - although this is a rarity in Townsville, as permanent water restrictions are in force.

Yuruga is Australia’s largest native plant nursery.  The website has some fabulous lists of plants, such as lists of bush tucker plants, plants for bird food (flowers & fruit) and butterflies (eg Australia’s largest butterfly, the Cairns Birdwing; the emblem of the northern tropics, the bright blue Ulysses; and Australia’s largest moth, the massive Hercules Moth - with a wingspan of up to 27cm).

Read the latest on government intentions to dump nuclear waste in the bush at the ‘Beyond Nuclear Initiative’ (BNI) blog.

Depressing stuff, and indicative of how our Federal Government views remote Australia.

Logically, nuclear waste should be stored as close to where it is created as possible, to minimise transport distances and associated spillage and security risks.  And in locations that are already very polluted (eg Sydney) rather than pristine (the vast majority of northern Australia, except for a closely settled coastal regions).  

It is exceedingly depressing that aboriginal people fought for ownership of cattle stations, only to have some members of the indigenous community sell their souls by agreeing to locate a nuclear waste dump on their land.  And to excuse this blatant greed by saying ’we are doing it for our children’s future’!  If millions of dollars fixed indigenous issues, it’d be a perfect situation by now.

Who voted for a Government so utterly stupid, that they have decided to relax Food Safety rules and allow the importation of beef from countries that have had BSE (Bovine  spongiform encephalopathy - otherwise known as ‘mad cow disease’)? 

No Australians have been inflicted with the BSE-related variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and no Australian cattle have ever been diagnosed with BSE.  Australia is THE largest exporter of beef, in value terms, and THE largest exporter of red meat.  The ONLY reason we maintain this position (ahead of Brazil, for example) is because we are in the exceedingly fortunate position of not having BSE, FMD (Foot and Mouth) and some of the other major livestock diseases.  This healthy position must be protected at all costs - for the good of the livestock themselves, for the good of native wildlife that would be decimated by some of these diseases, for the good of the food producers, and for the good of the food eaters and those who rely on this export income to support their way of life (that’s all Australians).

BSE HAS AN INCUBATION PERIOD OF YEARS.  A friend who visited Britain 9 years ago is still not allowed to donate blood to the Bloodbank.  We still don’t know a lot about BSE.

Just to cap this importation idiocy off - because of inadequate food labelling laws, Australians wouldn’t even know if they were eating local or imported beef, so personal choice would be removed.

How dumb is a government that would be so idiotic as to risk such a vital export income earning industry, the health of livestock and human beings?  Why aren’t the general public - more than 20 million of us - creating a fuss about this and ensuring it doesn’t happen?

Why does the Australian Government want to allow the importation of beef from BSE countries?  Blind Freddie could see this is simply due to pressure from countries such as Canada and USA, beef export competitors, who do not have Australia’s best interests at heart.    It reminds me of the fuss the US kicked up re. the AWB ‘kickbacks’.  Talk about hypocrisy - it is of course the US who makes & sells arms to dictatorships and countries in the grip of civil wars, so for the USA to complain about cash changing hands is laughable to secure food supply contracts.  In any case, inside the boardroom of any big company, there would be regular dealings that the average person in the street would view as morally dubious - from rampant insider share trading to price fixing agreements with competitors (think fuel prices on Friday afternoon), deliberate price undercutting to bankrupt competitors (think supermarkets and big hardware chainstores), exceedingly slow payment of accounts to suppliers (one of the largest stock & station agency firms had a policy of not paying invoices for at least 5 months; and A & R have a current written policy of not paying suppliers for 3-4 months after EOM), etc.

Add up all the other nonsensical decisions the Rudd Government has made, and they still won’t top the idiocy of this decision.  If you agree, tell as many politicians and others as you can, as soon as possible.  And at the same time tell them to ensure the enforcement of a ban on feeding bonemeal etc to livestock (not just banning the feeding of ‘like-to-like’, which is what is thought to have caused the BSE outbreak in Britain in the first place).

To read more on the Australian Government’s decision to import beef from BSE countries, refer to this excellent article in The Australian.

Today I stumbled upon ‘Iconic Landscapes’.

Quoting the home page:  “A group of researchers representing the Sciences and Arts at the University of Sydney have been funded by the University’s Institute for Sustainability to conduct a study looking at how communities value the environment and understand local environmental challenges and their options to overcome them.

They are combining scientific data with cultural observations by investigating three different landscapes – seawalls (Sydney Harbour), rangelands (Fowlers Gap) and arid dry-zones (Simpson Desert)

It’s about: 

• Going beyond academic discussions.
• Looking at how society values and perceives the environment.
• Identifying the decision making process involved in environmental change.  (Conservation costs money.  Better incomes for family farmers instantly means they can implement more conservation measures.  This means raising food prices and cutting middle-man profits.)
• Listening to your stories.
• Attaining a better understanding of the relationship between biological events and social values. (Hmm lost me there.)
• Understanding how scientific research meets the real needs of the community.  (?)
• Presenting the findings in an innovative, non-traditional way: film, photography, oral storytelling or an art installation, for example.  (This last point would have been a great help when applying for the research grant, you can’t beat ‘innovative’ presentation methods when it comes to attracting positive attention from grant-givers. FL)

 WHY?

• Australian envrionments (sic) are under increasing stress from droughts, feral animals and urban development.  (I would add:  And increasing stress due to the rabbitings on of uneducated* urbanites, thus steering public perception in a particular [incorrect] direction [’oh those terrible farmers desecrating the landscape’; bit of a laugh coming from anyone living in Australia’s largest mass of cement & bitumen, Sydney] & resulting in poorly judged government action [eg the Wild Rivers legislation, locking up land that was fine as it is - largely unchanged since white settlement - and hindering the opportunities of local indigenous communities.  Read Noel Pearson’s opinions on the subject]. *Uneducated in the sense that they have no genuine understanding of the life and environment in remote areas.  They visit for a while, pre-conceived firmly rooted opinions firmly in hand - do studies, then return to comfy quarters in inner-city Sydney to write should-do reports. FL)
• In addition to the traditional scientific findings linking distress with ecological resilience, we envisage identification of key societal values in the general public and the decision-making process involved in environmental change.  (Unfortunately the vast majority of Australians wouldn’t know genuine conservation if they fell over it.  They have backyards full of exotic species, pet cats that roam 24/7, do not think twice about chopping down any trees they want in their own backyard and few will pay the extra to purchase recycled paper, even if it’s toilet paper, yet there is an expectation food growers will produce ‘top quality’ ‘organic’ tucker with ‘low food miles’ at bottom drawer prices, by levitating it above the earth.  Ummm, is it sensible to ask this lot, the majority, what conservation measures they think are important, what should be put in place, and act on that?  I think not!  It’ll be NIMBYism at it’s most extreme. If you want to ask what conservation measures are already in place and what else could be done in future, ask people who are already managing the land well.  That rules out the vast majority of people living in suburbs and towns, all government departments and education institutions - except perhaps those working in agricultural fields who have genuine, long-term hands-on experience. FL)
• Australia has the longest history, globally, of human manipulation of the environment.(I’m not sure what criteria they’re using here.  Given that human beings have manipulated the environment since day dot, and that human beings didn’t first appear in Australia (Africa or Europe, last time I heard), then surely Australia does not have the longest history of human manipulation of the environment?  I’d love to know what ye old England looked like before human beings popped up out of the mist, planting hedgerows and erecting stone monuments in honour of who-knows-who.  The reference to ‘manipulation’ of the Australian environment presumably is a reference to the use of  fire - well it could be argued that the tree clearing, planting of other species, hunting of native animals and harvesting of native plants, raising of domestic livestock and importation of other species and farming (monocultures), plus the early creation of towns and cities in parts of Europe has had a massive impact on the environment over thousands of years, to the point in which it’s absolutely impossible to know what it would have been like before human beings arrived.  Who is to say that it is shorter term or of lesser significance than the use of fire by Australian aboriginals?  Probably a fairly pointless argument, so why make this assertion at all?  The reality is that the existence of human beings will impact on the environment to some unavoidable extent, regardless of whether they eat soy beans, wear vegan shoes, donate to the Australian Bush Heritage Fund and drive a Prius.)
• It is important to develop a current understanding of the knowledge and practices of local people to help sustain their own environments.  (Is this is a big brother statement or what?  Sounds like they’re saying - we’ll ask them what they know and what they do, then tell them how to do it?)
• The study aims to cut across traditional divides between arts and sciences and provide an integrated understanding of sustainable development in the landscapes that define modern Australia.  (There’s a glaring omission here.  Anyone notice the absence of the word AGRICULTURE amongst all this.  From what I could see, agriculture hasn’t been included under the banner of ’science’ - ’science’ here means a truckload of people in conservation fields (checkout the Blogroll for clues.  Apart from a Department of Agriculture and a Rangelands link, anyone spot anything other conservation mobs such as ‘Tree Hugger Blog’ and city mobs such as ‘Mosman Council’?).  So yes that’s right, tucker-growing, that stuff that just miraculously appears in Coles & Woollies like a cut-and-come-again Magic Pudding, hasn’t got a mention here.  Agriculture is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT LANDUSE IN THE WORLD.  No agriculture, no people.  You could turn the whole world into agricultural land and the human race could survive.  Turn it into one big ‘Bush Heritage’ reserve, [complete with rampant feral animals & plants and Sydney uni scientists running around with survey sheets] and we’ll be out the back door in no time.

The thing is, I might have believed this was a genuinely objective study, intent on accurately recording views that didn’t tally with the subjective preconceptions of the surveyers,  if I hadn’t stumbled upon this ‘Iconic Landscapes’ video this morning.  The preamble in front of it says:

Brian Mooney, Tourism and Development Manager at Diamantina Shire, takes us through some of this thoughts on visitors and Bush Heritage.

Bedourie, the administrative centre of the Diamantina Shire (twice the size of Denmark), lies in the area known as the Channel Country in southwestern Queensland. With 14 cattle stations in the Shire, which is roughly 95,000 square kilometres, beef production Isa major industry driving services in these remote parts of the country.

In this short video, Brian talks about the local community’s reception to Bush Heritage Reserves in the area. One such property, Cravens Peak, had been run as a pastoral holding managed for beef production since 1975. When Bush Heritage purchased the land in 2005 all cattle were removed in a bid to help conserve the Mulligan River catchment area. 

This meant less land for the pastoralists.  (Well actually, it means less land for food producing.  It means less money in what is already a small town, and fewer people living in what is already a sparsely populated area.  Depopulation and service reduction becomes a rapidly descending spiral.  Clearly, these social intricacies must be way beyond the understanding of whoever wrote ‘this meant less land for the pastoralists’.)  Some, as Brian hints at (like Mark and Nella Lithgow in a previous video), say it is a waste not to run cattle. (Well surely it could be argued that if land that had run cattle for 100 years was in sufficiently good condition to be worth purchasing as a reserve, then running cattle for another 100 years is an entirely reasonable prospect?)

In any story, there is two sides. This one is no different. (Listen to the video interview and see if you think this is actually presenting the ‘other’ side (i.e. the argument against locking up the land).  For the interviewer to completely believe Brian’s statement that ‘deep down’ the pastoralists ‘know it is a good thing’ is hilarious.   Talk about ’telling someone exactly what they want to hear’!   Brian is a tourism officer and he’d be perfectly well aware of the preconceived ideas of the interviewer.  If the interviewer really wants to know what the pastoralists think, then ask them, not the local tourism officer!  It is very significant that the interviewer thinks this presents ‘both sides of the story’. 

The second very telling interview is with Mark & Nella Lithgow, caretakers of  Bush Heritage Australia’s Cravens Peak and Ethabuka stations.  Interesting to hear their comments on being surrounded by cattle properties, with whom they say they are not popular/viewed with suspicion.  The Lithgows mentioned the ’old fashioned’ views of the surrounding cattle producers, overgrazing of the land, and ‘the cattle people think this whole country is theirs’  And ‘as soon as a green shoot comes out a cow comes along and chomps it off’; ‘the gidyea trees have been trampled by cattle for the last 25-30 years’; and ‘they are a lot better at resting paddocks now….that’s how they make their money’.   (Well actually, the cattle producers on the surrounding properties are growing the food that keeps the human race alive, and earning the export income that would have paid for the clothes that the Cravens Peak Station caretakers would be wearing, and for the car they drive - and everything else they depend on in the course of their daily life.  Hmm I wonder why their cattle producing neighbours aren’t fond of them?  I don’t suppose it is because they don’t like being cricitised as being old fashioned, environmental vandals, one-eyed and parochial, by patronising blow-ins?  And that they would view Bush Heritage Australia as helping to depopulate the countryside, thus having a detrimental effect on the social fabric of the local region, very significantly affecting the whole lives of those who have chosen to live there full-time and long term?  Apparently this aspect is completely lost on the Lithgows.  Mark and Nella have just a three year contract and even if they stay on after that - are they going to invest their whole lives, their heart, soul and livelihood into that country, as their neighbours have done?  Obviously not.  Perhaps that’s the biggest issue.  Managers who are there for just a few years and scientists and researches who just blow in and blow out - tell the locals what they have done wrong, what they should be doing, how they should be living, how they should think, then they head back to their homes in fashionable and temperate locations, working relatively short hours for very good and reliable incomes, in very comfortable circumstances - all the while viewing their short-term neighbours as yokels who just enjoy greenie-bashing.  Then they have the temerity to criticise their neighbours for not being fond of them!  This interview illustrates a fundamental lack of understanding and a particular type of blind arrogance, and sums up exactly why the vast majority of conservationists are so very unpopular with bush residents.  Imagine rural residents descending on the fancier parts of Sydney’s eastern or northern suburbs, or the trendy parts of Byron Bay, and telling their neighbours what they have been doing wrong, how they should think, and how they should manage their land.  Because yes, everyone who owns land is a land manager - pastoralists just have bigger slabs of it (and less money per square inch).  It’s a classic case of NIMBY.  I wonder why there is no interviews with pastoralists on the ‘Iconic Landscapes’ website?

The ultimate question is; if Craven’s Peak Station really was was so ‘denuded and rundown, it looked like a moonscape’ when Bush Heritage Australia bought it in 2005, where were the lands department staff, whose job it is to keep an eye on pastoral leases?  And how come there is 65 reptile species and 30 mammals on Cravens Peak- did this multitude walk in from the neighbours cattle stations over the last 5 years, once the station was destocked?   And I suppose all the frogs they talk about hopped over from the neighbours cattle stations too? 

All very depressing.  The Lithgows talk about cattle station owners as having an ‘old fashioned’ view of greenies as having rastafarian dreadlocks and chaining themselves to bulldozers.  I think pastoralists actually have a view of academic conservationists as being close to the truth - people who work in comfortable coastal circumstances, receiving a good income with relatively short working hours, who often apply for taxpayer funded grants for yet more studies rather than action.  People who look down on those who work in agricultural industries, viewing them as old-fashioned, parochial peasants, though they grow food for town and city residents, love and care for their land, and create export income that keeps Australia ticking over.  And who spend other people’s hard-earned money on planting and documenting the progress of sealife in flowerpots on the Cremorne seawall (reminds me of the story of The Emporers New Clothes, can those involved not see what a poncy, self-indulgent waste of time a project such as this would seem, to someone who spends a self-sufficient, hardworking life growing food?).  The reality is that academic conservationists have a more bigoted view of rural residents than the reverse.

 I’ll give ’Iconic Landscapes’ a couple of suggestions that will get immediate results:

• ditch all the grant money provided for this ‘research’ (excuse to trip around the inland with a video camera), and instead direct it towards getting immediate results.  The time could be far more usefully invested in local native vegetation regeneration projects, to encourage an increase in native wildlife (there’s enough rubbish and weeds in Sydney to keep the uni students busy for life.  I recommend starting with the lantana and mother-of-millions thriving in the bush on the hill overlooking The Spit).  The money can instead be spent on:
• - maintaining the current national parks and reserves that are sorely neglected under Federal and State governments, by increasing staff levels & the number of on-site rangers, and allocating sufficient money annually to genuinely tackle feral animals and weeds.
• - by increasing supervision of all Australian land - urban and rural - and prosecuting people who clearly mismanage land under their care, with sizeable fines and confiscations.  This ranges from developers who clearfell urban land to a handful of rural landowners who fail to maintain assets and overgraze to the extent of creating a local drought (one that is unmistakable, because it always stops on the boundary fence).  There aren’t many, but rural residents know who these latter people are, and are appalled.  I could name three major environmental vandals right now - yet nothing ever seems to be done to them.  Don’t take land off good land managers and let it sit idle, with feral plants and animals taking over.  Keep it in the hands of those who love it and who willingly spend a lifetime living on it and looking after it, and help them look after their country the way they already know how to (but who rarely have sufficient income to manage to do as much as they would like, and they’re already working hours that would make the average public servant keel over).

Surprising numbers of people end up on my website after searching for Australian Merino wool-related subjects.  Many are looking for clothing or information.  So here’s a useful shortlist of the better-known wool clothing retailers and manufacturers, so that you can do the right thing and wear environmentally sustainable fibres this winter:

Specialist wool garment retailers:

• The Big Merino, Goulburn (NSW) - a range of brands by some of the best-known wool garment manufacturers.  And, of course, info on the Australian wool industry.
• The Uralla Wool Room, Uralla (Northern NSW) - just about every brand of woollen clothing under the sun - a one-stop shop for the lot.

Some Australian manufacturers of wool garments:

• Jolly Jumbuk (Jumbuk Wools), Bairnsdale (Vic) - I would love to be able to justify buying one of their beautifully knitted traditional-style Arran wool jumpers, but alas even on the coldest Townsville night, a wool jumper of this weight is not wearable in the tropics - way too hot for far northern Australia.   But if you live in a temperate or cold climate, you’d be crazy not to invest in one of these works of art.  You can even get one especially hand-knitted for you, if you have a longer or shorter back or arms than average or you’re simply fussy about the fit.  Jumbuk Wools even have an explanatory diagram on the website to help you measure your carcase accurately.  No excuses!  What you’ll save in artificial house heating will pay for the jumpers in no time.
• Casaveen, Oatlands (Tasmania) - beautifully stylish knitwear - including jumpers, cardigans and wool skirts, in bright colours as well as more earthy tones.
• Frasers of Arran, Armidale (northern NSW) - a big range of wool clothing, including a particularly splendid range of beautiful wool jackets and coats. 
• Woolerina, Forbes (central NSW) - fabulous fine wool, lightweight singlets, T-shirts and longjohns that can be worn ‘under or over’.  Going on a trip to Europe (Tassie or NZ)?  Shop here first for your underduds.
• Hedrena Textiles, Geelong West (Victoria) - a very specific range of superfine wool items that are all classic in design, practical colours and machine washable.  Also great travel gear!  Special super-fine, machine-washable wool fibre developed in conjunction with the CSIRO.
• Quality Softwools Australia (QSA), Clifton Hills (Victoria), including the Toorallie and Snowy River brands - lots of wool jumpers, but the standout is wool jumpers for blokes - tough, practical yet stylish - and of course - all machine washable.
• Merino Gold(Victoria) - classic mens and womens finewool jumpers etc - also contract manufacturing.
• Billabidgee, Sebastapol (Victoria) - a range of colourful mens & womens knitwear.
• Tarcutta Textiles, Tarcutta (Southern NSW) - everyday wool rugby jumpers for adults & children.
• Morrisons of Euroa, (Victoria) - denimwool jeans and skirts.  Denimwool is a fabric created from 13% wool & 85-87% cotton (2% elastane for stretch denimwool fabric) and was developed by clothing manufacturer Bradmill (Melbourne, Victoria).  Other clothing retailers also sell jeans and skirts made from denimwool.  I have skirts made of denimwool, and they are excellent - highly recommended.

And of course some top manufacturers and retailers in our neighbouring woolgrowing country - New Zealand:

• The Wool Press, Arrowtown (South Island).  A range of brands and items, including stunning leather coats.  Well worth the investment if you live in a cold climate, because they last for decades if you are smart enough to buy a good quality, classic design and look after it (which is pretty easy - they wipe clean).
• Merino Kids, Auckland (New Zealand) - excellent range of pure wool items for babies and toddlers.  For parents who want their kids to start their lives off wrapped in breathable, practical, environmentally friendly natural materials rather than plastic (synthetic materials).

For ugg boots, refer to the previous blog page of information.  PLEASE don’t buy those synthetic hideousities that pretend to be made of sheepskin, they will make your feet stink to high heaven - and of course don’t buy the overseas imitators, buy genuine Australian ugg boots. 

Waverley Woollen Mills, Launceston (Tasmania) makes wonderfully soft blankets and throws in beautiful colours and designs.  Such as this fabulous Herringbone Throw made from 18.5 micron (superfine) Tasmanian Merino wool.  Good quality wool blankets aren’t cheap, but they literally will last longer than the person who buys them, so when the cost is spread over a lifetime of use they are exceedingly good value.  Creswick woollen mills (Victoria) also produce wool blankets and the genuine Billabong Rugs, (wool check picnic rugs with rubber backing to keep the damp at bay) - and they just happen to be on sale as I write this).

For anyone who is interested in knitting, there are still a handful of wool knitting yarn producers of varying sizes, such as:

• The Nundle Woollen Mill(Nundle, northern NSW)
• Bendigo Woollen Mill(Bendigo, central Victoria)

 There are also manufacturers that produce garments and knitwear made out of merino wool blended with other natural fibres, such as possum (in NZ they are unfortunately a declared pest, as they are not native, so turning them into clothing is a practical solution) and alpaca (beautiful fibre but it can be prickly, so it’s not for undergarments). 

The Aus/NZ Shearing World has a page of great information on Merino sheep, shearing etc for children.

Unfortunately some people were put off wool a long time ago because they bought a cheaply made wool jumper and gave it a rough time in the rough-as-guts top-loading washing machine (maybe even a turn in hot water and with harsh detergent, just to really kill it), and then blamed the product when it shrank, turned into a strange shape, transformed into a doormat and/or got little pills of wool all over it.  Many finewool products are now machine washable but in any case modern front loading machines are fabulous at washing efficiently without beating clothes to death, so they’re kinder on everything.  And you get what you pay for.  Buy good quality woollen garments and follow the washing instructions on the label - it’s simple - and there will be no nasty laundry disasters. 

You simply can’t beat a good quality wool garment for timeless style and environmental friendliness.  You really can mulch the garden with it when you wear it out!

If you are travelling through the outback this year and would like to see Australia’s unique sport - bronco branding - then visit the Bronco Branding Australia website for some dates of upcoming bronco branding competitions.

At present there is a Queensland and South Australian Bronco Branding Association.  Most bronco branding competitions are held in western Queensland and northern South Australia.   Events have been held in these Queensland towns:  Camooweal, Mt Isa, Winton, Longreach, Stonehenge, Jundah, Windorah,  Middleton, Boulia, Birdsville; and these South Australian towns:  Oodnadatta, Maree, Carrieton, Marla and William Creek.  Fewer towns than Queensland, but bronco branding competitions in SA are fixtures (solidly run), despite the inroads made by animal liberation extremists intent on banning all sports involving livestock.  Broncoing competitions have also been held in the Northern Territory at Alice Springs and the Brunette Races (ABC Race Club) on the Barkly Tableland. 

In the midst of severe drought conditions broncoing competitions are usually cancelled because of the scarcity of cattle in suitable condition, so if the season is a bit dodgy and you are making a special trip, it would pay to double check it is on by ringing the organisers or checking the website.

Bronco branding competitions are very entertaining to watch and spectators don’t need a rule book to appreciate the skill involved.  You won’t find any show ponies at a bronco branding competition, and no-one who has paid someone to train their expensively-purchased horse for them.  It’s authentic work by rural residents, and the characters are interesting.  For more information see the Bronco branding page.

There are still misguided souls who believe the percentage of computer literate rural residents is lower than the percentage of urban residents.  In actual fact it’s quite the reverse.  Most rural residents are so practical and efficient they will pick the eyes out of anything new and ignore what is time-wasting or unhelpful.   There is a typical story of a farming family’s use of the internet on ‘Farm Management 500′, ‘Networking the Nation’.  John Ryan of Yarrawonga got to know a Canadian farmer due to helpful advice he was posting on a harvester website, travelled to Canada and met in person, resulting in some very real benefits for his farming business.

There are numerous benefits in the development of such contacts - from straight technical advice from people with first-hand experience, through to what is perhaps even more valuable - shared stories and experiences, with people living a surprisingly similar life though they happen to live in another country.  Australia-wide and international rural networking will increase in future - it is only in  its infancy and it will be fascinating to see this professional networking develops.

I stumbled upon an excellent piece on AgMates on the history of many channel country families and management of sheep and cattle stations in the far south-western corner of Queensland - the country south and west of Quilpie.   Well worth a read.

In the AgMates article, David Edwards, Quilpie Mayor, is quoted frequently.  One of his most depressing but unfortunately true observations, that doesn’t just apply to the Quilpie, Eromanga and Thargomindah region is: 

 “The country is being bought up by wealthy cattlemen from from central and North QLD in particular. They are putting 2-3 properties together as low cost breeding factories. Families don’t come, you have those 2-3 families gone replaced by a caretaker running the waters. They bring in contractors to do the mustering. You don’t need a lot of infrastructure except fences and water to run those operations.”

“In my lifetime this is the biggest change in this community ever. Families and their kids are leaving, mining is booming at Eromanga but with fly-in-fly-out staff and big mining companies we don’t get much out of it.”

In more than twenty years of poking around cattle stations, it has indeed been true that absentee owners have increasingly bought up neighbouring properties, often running them with just one caretaker/borerunner whereas before there was one family living on each place.   Or staff are reduced from the bare minimum sociable quantity of about  8 young people on very remote properties to just several people, then the owners wonder why they can’t attract and keep young staff.  (Hello?  Would these owners have stayed working out on a station several hours drive from the nearest tiny town, when there is only several social events during the year, if that, and there’s only one or two other people of the same age for company?)   This causes large quantities of money to head down the drain due to permanent understaffing, high staff turnover/low morale and increased stuff-ups due to new or inexperienced employees.  Theoretically these owners run more profitable businesses by squeezing a profit out of them however I don’t believe this is necessarily the case, especially in the long term.  Too often such owners depend on ultimately profiting by making a big capital gain by selling, but if prices don’t continue to rise willy-nilly, that plan comes unstuck in a sometimes spectacular fashion (the finances collapse like a pack of cards).  But perhaps I just don’t understand people who can buy a going concern that families have spent years building up, to let it go to rack and ruin because there is no-one living on the place permanently.   How can these absentee owners lie straight in bed at night, when they are leaving assets in their care, in worse shape, when they’ve sucked the sap out of them?  What joy and satisfaction do they get out of helping to ruin communities, by increasing the downward spiral of de-population (thus effecting educational options for the children and social opportunities for the adults, and services and facilities for everyone).

A friend in rural real estate commented yesterday that a number of lender-forced sales are up and coming.  In recent years too many people have paid too much for their pastoral land, and discovered too late that the business they bought can’t generate enough net income to pay the interest bill (whoops, forgot to do a budget before they bought).  Receivers are moving in despite the relatively low interest rates at present, and seasons and prices that haven’t been too bad, in relative terms.   

However while there are fools waiting to be parted with their money, prices probably won’t drop much.  I don’t entirely agree with David Edwards that it is ’wealthy cattlemen from central and northern Queensland’ doing the damage.  I think it is buyers from southern Queensland and capital cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, who are frequently doing the significant buying, underpinning the price of large pastoral properties and preventing valuations from dropping down to more realistic levels (some smart property agent tells these city businessmen and professionals that there’s a bush bargain to be had, and they can’t resist the temptation to become an overnight ’cattle baron’.  Just because someone has climbed up the corporate tree doesn’t mean they can’t make spectacular mistakes on the business front, especially when the heart is involved rather than the head).  

As someone said to me a few years ago.  ‘Do you know how you end up a millionaire on Cape York?  Start off as a multi-millionaire.’  I’m still laughing hysterically at the Queensland Government’s expenditure of $4.62 million on Cape York’s Strathmay station.  It would be really funny if it wasn’t my taxes that Anna Bligh has so happily squandered.  The Strathmay station owners more than doubled their money (probably more like trebled, because it was sold bare) - not bad for 6 years of ownership.  So yes government idiots are also to blame for affecting rural property prices.