R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings (RMWAH) has gone into receivership.<\/p>\n
No surprise.<\/p>\n
What is surprising is that blindingly obvious questions, which\u00a0I posed in blog posts dating back to the company’s formation, remain unanswered.\u00a0 Years later. \u00a0I hope taxpayers enjoyed kissing their millions goodbye.<\/p>\n
I’ve written a\u00a0number of blog posts mentioning RMWAH; here are several of the main ones:<\/p>\n
RMWAH formed out of a partnership with Primary Holdings International (June 2009)<\/a><\/p>\n RMWAH & Australian Federal (Labor) Government purchase of Henbury cattle station (July 2011)<\/a>\u00a0– with very little public detail provided. For example, who was pocketing the proceeds for the destocking sale of the thousands of cattle?\u00a0 Major investors in the project – Australian taxpayers; or the minor investors?<\/p>\n RMWAH – carbon trading scheme details lacking (July 2009<\/a>) –\u00a0further discussion on the unanswered questions, the lack of detail available and the apparent absence of any sort of clear plan re how this taxpayer-funded conservation\/investment project was actually going to benefit the environment in any way.<\/p>\n RMWAH currently owns Northern Territory properties La Belle Downs<\/strong> & Welltree<\/strong> in the marine plains region SW of Darwin, plus Henbury station<\/strong> in Central Australia; and Inglewood Farms<\/strong> and Mirage Plains<\/strong> in Queensland.<\/p>\n Late last year RMWAH Chief Operating Officery Rory Richards said the company wanted cattle returned to Henbury Station:<\/a><\/p>\n Mr Richards says he has not raised the possibility of restocking cattle with the Federal Government. “I believe everything is open for dialogue and negotiation,” he said.<\/em><\/p>\n “Our agreement is relatively flexible. At this stage we would have to convince the minister that it was beneficial to run cattle.”<\/em><\/p>\n That sums it up really.\u00a0 “Our agreement is relatively flexible (with the Federal Government)”.\u00a0Taxpayers\u00a0forked out millions for a scheme that not only wasn’t sorted in detail prior to the money being handed over, it wasn’t sorted out in detail over the following years, either!\u00a0 “Flexible” is an understatement! It just looks like a massive speculative project, to be figured out as time went by, with investor fashions such as “carbon sequestration” (relating to carbon trading) and “biofuels”\u00a0featuring on the website…without clear facts and figures explaining how any of it\u00a0would\u00a0actually work.\u00a0 Let alone a budget!<\/p>\n This is\u00a0a lesson all Australians should take note of because we must think long-term. Conservation – done properly – is very expensive.<\/strong>\u00a0 That’s why RMWAH would have wanted cattle back on Henbury Station (I doubt it was because they’d suddenly listened to Alan Savory<\/a>, and discovered that carefully management livestock can be much better for environmental health than removing livestock completely; since he’s been around for years).<\/p>\n The most economically efficient and effective\u00a0way to help look after and improve the Australian environment is to help natural land managers – family farmers.<\/strong>\u00a0 They have a natural, long-term vested interest in looking after their country, as the intention is always to hand the land on to the next generation in a better shape than it was in when they took hold of the reins.\u00a0 Government assistance and private investment is best directed to helping existing farmers\u00a0spend time and\u00a0money on\u00a0practical projects such as capping free-flowing bores,\u00a0fencing off different land types, controlling feral animals and weeds, and continuing education\/training (such as Resource Consulting Services and Alan Savory courses, etc).\u00a0 Scientific research can be conducted on cattle stations; they don’t need to be called a National Park for research to occur!\u00a0 Running well-managed herds of cattle\u00a0keeps people living and working in these areas 24\/7 x\u00a052 weeks of the year (employment, social and national security benefits); produces large quantities of good quality food; \u00a0and contributes significant export income to the economy – thus helping fund\u00a0conservation projects.\u00a0 Best of all,\u00a0long-term cattle station owners have a vested interest in reinvesting back into their properties and this expenditure is tax\u00a0deductible from profits made. \u00a0It’s a very healthy money cycle.<\/p>\n Why\u00a0do\u00a0governments buy up remote\u00a0cattle stations for conservation reasons?\u00a0 Because after more than a century of running cattle, they’re still in great shape!\u00a0 It’s a no-brainer.\u00a0 So squandering\u00a0millions on buying these stations then having to fund management\u00a0costs from the public purse, ad infinitum, is simply crazy.\u00a0\u00a0Conservationists who have this phobia about livestock ruining the environment, need a reality check.\u00a0 Buying, locking up, destocking and depopulating vast areas of inland Australia is\u00a0sheer stupidity.\u00a0 Helping cattle station owners and managers do the best job they can managing their environment is by far the most cost-effective and productive way to get results.<\/p>\n RM William’s Agricultural Holdings (RMWAH<\/strong>) runs separately to R.M. Williams<\/strong> – the boot & clothing manufacturing company; however Ken Cowley<\/strong> is involved in both.\u00a0 Ken saved R.M. Williams from receivership in 1993 and became sole owner after the death of founder Reginald Murray (RM) Williams in 2003.\u00a0 Ken sold just under 50% of the R.M. William’s company to a capital equity group in April<\/a>, but retains the majority share himself. I have my fingers crossed for this iconic Australian company because there are so many tragic examples of group investment schemes ending\u00a0in the closing of the business purchased.\u00a0 Angus & Robertson springs to mind.<\/p>\n One last comment on the Henbury Cattle Station debacle.\u00a0 The hypocrisy of all those researchers,\u00a0academics, politicians & other hangers-on\u00a0who squandered copious quantities of taxpayer’s hard-earned money & burned\u00a0large amounts of fossil fuels flying or driving all the way from the eastern seaboard to Central Australia, make me absolutely sick.\u00a0 One can only speculate what Reginald Williams would have had to say about such a project, also.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings (RMWAH) has gone into receivership. No surprise. What is surprising is that blindingly obvious questions, which\u00a0I posed in blog posts dating back to the company’s formation, remain unanswered.\u00a0 Years later. \u00a0I hope taxpayers enjoyed kissing their millions goodbye. I’ve written a\u00a0number of blog posts mentioning RMWAH; here are several of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,10,165],"tags":[100,161,166,176],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4482,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions\/4482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fionalake.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}