28 April, 2010

Bourke Show Visit - Travel Log

Thursday 22nd April,2010
After discovering the BMW had a flat battery, I finally set off from St Ives at 12 midday and drove straight to Dubbo. Only took 4.5 hours with one stop for a McDonald's hamburger in Mudgee.

The Dubbo visit was focussed on the Clyde alumni. I stayed with former Toorale and Pier Pier Managers, David and Robin Englert, in their very comfortable home. A nicer couple you would not find. They both have lived in the bush all of their lives and have four grown up sons. They have great values and understand how the corporate pastoral scene operates. Robin's father was a Station Manager and David (a solicitor's son from West Wyalong), was a long time employee of the old Scottish Australia Company (SACO). He and I first met in the back bar of Bourke's "Fitz's Hotel" (Fitzgeralds Post Office Hotel) in 1960. I was 19 at the time and a very junior employee of Dalgety, David was a jackeroo (or Overseer) on Moombidary Station over the Queensland border, west of Hungerford. I often say that that bar is where I learned to drink!

David was the first Station Manger recruited by Clyde after Swire's took over from Dudley Dunn in 1988 and he and Robin played a big part in establishing the Company's caring culture in those important formative years. They were great mentors for young staff and also had considerable success with recruitment, including Tony and Michelle McManus who later managed Toorale.

We had dinner at the new Chinese Restaurant within the Macquarie Club, with former Clyde staff the Englerts, Tony and Michelle McManus (Wingadee and Toorale until its tragic sale to the Government in 2008)and Bob and Fran Ellis (Merrimba). The Ellis' had a long connection with our family thru' our respective fathers. Both worked for the old AML&F Company and Dad was Bob's father's best man in 1943, only six years before Dad's premature death from Hodgkins Disease. A very enjoyable evening.

Friday 23rd April
Drove to Bourke via Coonamble and Walgett. Ever since Sydney the country looks quite magnificent with a huge body of summer grasses.Clyde are not encouraging visitors as they enter the sensitive selling period, so I did not call on any of the Coonamble Stations, but I did have a good look at the wonderful Wingadee, which is traversed extensively by public roads! As you would expect it is in peak condition. I was particularly impressed with how well the Bambatsi panic has finally established itself in Lower Bullock and the Nursery Paddocks in the Castlereagh River flood country. Three wet summers have helped. It is notoriously hard to establish, but great once it gets a go on. On the negative side, the regrowth of dogwood in the country we cleared in Rheeces Paddock is alarming.

The country gets even greener and lusher as you approach Brewarrina. There has clearly been a push to lift presentation of the Brewarrina township. Some smart new signage as you approach and the town was better presented than I have seen it for some years.

I called on Murray and Skye Bragg who are now managing Beemery Station for the new owners-the Nugent family now of Glen Innes, but formerly of Tambo. Murray and Skye have moved to the Yambacoona (Beemery add-on) homestead, as for reasons unknown, the Beemery homestead, cattle yards, main shearing shed and quarters have all been located on the Beemery Cotton Farm which was subdivided from the rest of the Station, as Clyde wished to retain it! Why this was done goodness only knows as the whole Beemery Station homestead complex was established to service a sheep station not an irrigation operation, which has its infrastructure, including housing, closer to the developed fields. In any event the Nugents are lucky to have the services of the Braggs and they have got off to a wonderful start with a spectacularly good season,a full complement of livestock, rumoured to have been bought very cheaply from Clyde. The Beemery flock of some 12,000 Egelabra blood classed ewes is a wonderful asset in the current sheep price boom. I recall with some sadness how excited the then Clyde management were when we were able to purchase Beemery from the Russell family (Logan Downs Pastoral Co.) in 1994. It is recognised as one of Bourke's very best grazing properties and had extensive water licenses.

The  Beemery Cotton Farm, which Clyde have retained, is undoubtedly the best cotton development on the Barwon/Darling with the great benefit of deep storages and great soils. It took eight years to get the approvals (for the water storages-the irrigation licenses were already in place) from the NSW Government and I have often attributed my very grey hair to the frustrations of dealing with dark green bureaucrats over the Beemery development. These bureaucrats made an art form of the saying that "delay is the most insidious form of denial". The whole matter is worthy of a book in its own right. Whilst it was going on I read Tony Grey's book on the Jabiluka uranium mine. It was good therapy, as it made me realise that I was not the first person to endure the delights of dealing with those who think they know better than their political masters and wish to  block those who want to create wealth, pay tax and generate economic activity to the great benefit of all concerned. There were times when I felt these resistors of progress should have been tried for treason!

I arrived in Bourke in time for a drink with Richard Turner, former Clyde GM -Pastoral, and dinner with Geoff and Anne Wise at the Port of Bourke Hotel. Very familiar territory as this pub was until about two years ago owned by Clyde.

Geoff Wise, a veterinarian by training, is the General Manager of the Bourke Shire, having previously been the Regional Director of the Department of Land and Water Conservation and the Western Lands Commissioner. He was a valuable member of the Darling Matilda Way Sustainable Region Advisory Committee which I chaired. How lucky Bourke is to have this high calibre couple as enthusiastic residents.

Also present at the Hotel were most of the stud breeders offering rams at tomorrow's sale. I have often noted that Bourke's merino ram sale, run in conjunction with the Show, is one of the few sales you can go to where the breeders from the three dominant medium and strong wool stud breeding areas are represented-the Macquarie Valley,the Riverina and South Australia. It was not an early night.

Saturday 24th April
The crowd at the Bourke Show was below expectations, although I still saw lots of people I knew. The local grazing fraternity are a fine group who relate well to each other and I much enjoy their company. Les Walsh from Landmark (formerly Dalgety) who I have known for 47 years and who was a key player in Clyde operations, as our local agent, hosted a dinner at the "Pub" that evening.
Not entirely by accident I met Tim Lee from ABC Landline (Victoria) who was keen to do a TV interview for running on a future Landline programme. Tim proved a most interesting and intelligent companion and he joined Les,Nick Wadlow (my friend Rob Ashby's son-in-law from Old Ashrose in S.A.)and a friend of his Craig, for a most enjoyable dinner.

Sunday 25th April
Following all of the recent rain, particularly in south-western Queensland there is a huge amount of water coursing down the western rivers and I was keen to have a look at this from the air.
We had arranged a flight in a high wing light aircraft for today, so I was alarmed to hear some showers of rain on the roof overnight.The day dawned showery and overcast and prospects did not look good. We had some misgivings embarking on this venture on what was Anzac Day. At 5:45AM Les Walsh and I attended a small moving Dawn Service at the Bourke War Memorial in Central Park. I recalled that in the small rotunda at this same park the Queen and Prince Phillip were officially welcomed to Bourke a few years ago.

Our pilot and the aircraft owner was to be John Oldfield from Belalie Station a man in his mid-seventies who knows the back country very well from the air, and the aforementioned Les Walsh, who has been in Bourke for some 40 years and knows the country very well at ground level.

After nearly giving it away, the weather looked better to the south-west so we decided to change our proposed route and go for a fly down the Warrego on Toorale and then decide whether it was worth going on. The three of us finally took off about 10:00 AM and headed for Boera Dam on Toorale. The dam was still spilling to the south west, the pipes were open and the left bank bywash was running. The banks which stop the spilled water from running back to the river have been over-topped in several places and there was plenty of water running back into the river.

I felt quite sick at seeing all of the improvements we had made to this great property falling in to disrepair. The new cattle yards,new shearing shed,three new houses,lots of ponding, all of the laser levelled fields and cotton farm roads and channels-all looking sad and neglected.The whole episode is a tragedy with the current flood demonstrating the main feature of this Station. I just hate waste from every perspective and  I don't think the Clyde management had any real understanding of what enormous waste was involved in selling Toorale to the Government to become a National Park.

The Homestead Dam is seriously breached and I understand there is no intention of carrying out repairs to this or the over-topped banks.Ross' Billabong has been running from the Darling and this water has met with the Warrego mainstream water creating a huge lake. Henry Lawson wrote a very colourful piece of prose describing Ross' Billabong and how it sometimes runs from the Darling to the Warrego and sometimes from the Warrego to the Darling. We also flew over the old shearing shed where Lawson worked as a "rouse-about" in 1892
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The Warrego is carrying a big stream to the Darling at the main junction.Downstream on Talowla the Little Warrego is also carrying a stream of the spilled water which over flowed at Boera. For a full description of how the system works click here.

From Toorale we flew down the Darling to Louth and decided to abandon our plans to go all the way to Wilcannia to view the Paroo/Darling junction/s, but rather to fly due west over the Paroo/Cuttaburra water and then follow the Paroo upstream to Wanaaring.

As we flew down the Darling on Anzac Day I recalled that our famous war historian C.E.W. Bean, who did so much to create the Anzac tradition, also immortalised the Darling River in Australian history with his newspaper reports for the Sydney Morning Herald in 1909 which later formed two books-'On the Wool Track' and the 'The Dreadnought of the Darling'. The "Dreadnought" was the "Jandra" a modern replica of which plies the Darling weir pool to this day.His exposure to the Australians of the Darling  did much to form his views on their characteristics and the  reasons they made such good soldiers and this was carried in to his writings of their deeds from Gallipoli. The modern day leading political journalist Michelle Grattan has written a modern version of the first book-'Back on the Wool Track' to which I was able to make a small contribution and in which Toorale features.

The Paroo/Cuttaburra water was not as spectacular as I imagined it would be, and we flew right across it from east to west, flying over the Tongo homestead and Tongo Lake before heading north. In this area the water spreads widely into lots of "flood runners" and lakes.I think the main body had gone through, but I doubt that it will make a big contribution to the Darling. From Wanaaring we flew north/west over Peter Hughes Thurloo Downs homestead and then due west over Delalah Downs old house into the Bulloo Overflow country.This was one of the most spectacular things I have seen.Literally hundreds of thousands of acres covered in shallow water.Delalah Downs has an area of some 660,000 acres of which one third can be inundated from Bulloo water. Along with Thurloo Downs, Peter Hughes has 1.3mil acres, making him the biggest landholder in N.S.W. Gail and I have know him since he and his late wife Janet were good friends when we were first married and living at Nyngan in 1966. The Bulloo Overflow looked as I imagine Lake Eyre to look, with a distinct difference that it is not salty and it is beautiful soft soil which will explode with growth as the water dries back.We  flew in a wide turn over almost continuous water until we struck the Queensland/NSW border before heading east along the border fence. This is BIG country and even in an aircraft it seems to tale a long time. We flew over Hamilton Gate, Merintu, and Moombidary, crossed the now much smaller Paroo below Hungerford and south west to the Cuttaburra Basin, another famous water body. The Cuttaburra Creek comes out of the Warrego just below the Cunnamulla weir and these days carries much more water than the Warrego. The basin is a huge area of land north of Yantabulla which is wonderful cattle fattening country and a notable bird breeding area.

From here we headed back to Bourke over Ford's Bridge, the flight having taken just on four and a half hours.
I count myself very fortunate to have flown with two such knowledgeable companions which meant that this trip lived right up to my high expectations. Between them John and Les identified every single homestead we flew over.

Tim Lee wanted to do a TV interview with me for Landline, this morning, but postponed it because of the poor light in the overcast weather. However, it was now a bright afternoon and we proceeded with this interview in the garden at the Riverside Motel. This Motel is of a very high standard in a group of historic buildings and is beautifully presented amidst a magnificent garden. It is a great asset for Bourke and a great credit to the owners John and Sipha Hickson.

One of the issues discussed in the TV interview was the recent unheralded action by the NSW Goverment to lower the 'cap' on annual water extractions from the Barwon/Darling by a further 17% from 173 gigalitres to 143 gigs. This follows the cut of entitlements a few years ago of 67% from 523gigs. This action is truly outrageous given the "rubbery" nature of the figures and the agreement with the NSW Government that the 173 figure was an interim minimum and would be revised upwards when the figures were firmed up as a result of the review of the model they were using. A committee was established to carry out this review and for some reason it has never completed its work. I was asked to attend a meeting of the Mungindi/Menindee Advisory Council at Walgett tomorrow to agree a course of action by the irrigators and concerned local citizens.

Following a much needed 'nap' I had a most enjoyable dinner with Les and Frances Walsh in the "Dalgety White House" (now their very comfortable home), where I have been many times before. One of the nice things about getting older is all of the past experiences shared with long term friends, and the bond this provides and enrichment it gives to good conversation. A most enjoyable evening and as usual great tucker from a gifted cook (Frances).

Monday 26th.April
I gave former Mayor and long term friend Wayne O'Mally a lift across to Walgett and we shared much information on a two hour drive. It reminded me of the old agency adage-if you want to get to know a client better-take him on a trip somewhere.

The meeting at Walgett was very well conducted by Chairman Ian Cole and was attended by the State and Federal M.P.s Kevin Humphries and Mark Coulton. Geoff Wise briefed the meeting on the extraordinary method used by the State Government, the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and the Independent Audit Group (IAG) to calculate the applicable 'cap' on irrigation extractions in each year. I wont try to explain it, because it is incomprehensible! It was always my understanding, and I was involved in all of the negotiations leading up to the signing of an MOU, which established the 173 gig figure as the interim minimum, that the model was to be used to establish the 'cap' and extractions would be simply the actual measured extractions. It now seems that somehow or other what the extractions should be in any particular year is also a modelled number and it is in comparison with this modelled number that the claim is made that the Barwon/Darling is exceeding'cap'. Frankly, I don't understand it, nor did anyone else present. I made a brief comment which covered four points:-

  • We were dealing with  whether the 'cap' should be somewhere between 143 and 250 gigs.(when river heights were sufficient for any pumping at all), from a river which had an average annual flow past Bourke of 2500 gigs.Whatever figure was finally agreed, that did not seem an excessive impost in seeking a reasonable balance between  environmental and socio-economic objectives.
  • The only basis for what the 'cap' should be was the wretched NSW model, which was admitted to be very "rubbery" and this was used by the three parties ie NSW Government,MDBA and the IAG
  • The 173gig figure was always intended as an interim number whilst the model was being validated/corrected and was also to be the minimum. The MOU clearly states that the final figure would be in the range of 173 to 250 gigs
  • There was an agreement that in philosophical terms, that at the various forums (particularly MDBA and COAG) the NSW Government would ,with irrigator support,strongly seek the maximum defensible 'cap' compared with the dark green attitude of wanting a low figure. They need to take a leaf out of the Queensland Government approach.
I was nominated to a Committee to meet with the Minister to discuss the matter at an early date, in spite of my protests that I no longer had any formal representational base.

Here is a link to all the photos I took on this trip.

21 April, 2010

Water Management-Facts and Myths

My friend, noted economist, David Trebeck recently gave what I think is the best paper on the general subject of water that I have read. Here is the link I commend it to you.

12 April, 2010

Australian Wool Industry

Attendance at yesterday's RAS Sheep and Wool Show Opening reminded me that I had never recorded the speech I was invited to deliver at the same event two years ago. It seems that it remains relevant to this great industry.

2008 SYDNEY ROYAL SHEEP AND FLEECE SHOW OFFICIAL OPENING
Acknowledgements:
President RAS- Rob Vickery (and Tina)
Chairman Sheep and Wool Committee- Robert Ryan
President NSW Stud Merino Breeders Association- Rob Lindsay-
President Australian Stud Sheep Breeders Association Ltd (NSW)-Ian Cameron
GM Agriculture RAS- Sue White

Ladies and Gentlemen
I am indeed very honoured to be asked to perform this task. Sheep and wool have played such a special place in Australia’s history both in economic and cultural terms.
It is great to be amongst so many friends and such magnificent animals and fleeces.

I am mindful of the platform this official opening has provided for the airing of some of the great issues that have beset the merino section in particular, of the wider sheep industry.
(I could have referred to destructive internecine warfare, but I thought better of that.)

What I would like to do in these few minutes is to share with you some broad observations covering the merino, meat and dual purpose sections of the overall “Sheep industry”. I am mindful that this is not only a merino Show.

Even that segmentation (merino,meat and dual purpose) is misleading as it infers that merinos are not meat sheep. The facts are, however unintended, many merino breeders/woolgrowers over the last decade or so, have been principally in the meat business at least until the last year or so, when we have seen better wool prices.
This fact has been well recognised by the NSW Stud Merino Breeders when they introduced the Merino Wether Lamb Challenge within the annual Dubbo Show and Sale-a very appropriate and innovative initiative.

The thinking and attitudes of all of us are greatly influenced by our individual experiences. In my case, twenty-eight years as an employee of Dalgety, what used to be known as a “Pastoral House” or a “Woolbroker”, then nineteen years with Clyde have left their mark.

According to the media Clyde is Australia’s largest woolgrower and its fourth largest cotton grower (when we have any water). (I understand we run number seven with wheat and are one of the largest beef producers in NSW, but are not in the big northern Australian beef league).

Clyde runs 120,000 merino breeding ewes with 12,000 of these on Pier Pier at Coonamble, being joined to Borders. The tops of the Ist X ewe lambs from Pier Pier go to Wirribilla at Walcha where we run 10,000 Ist Border/ Merino X ewes which are joined to Dorsets. Thus the Company has considerable exposure to the wool and sheepmeat markets and a vital interest in the future of these industries.

We spent a not so small fortune in feeding our breeding ewes through the drought, being mindful of the massive drop in sheep numbers and the fact that the merino ewe is the cornerstone of both the wool and meat sheep industries.

Our management focus is on driving down unit costs of production. I believe that we producers can only have limited influence on consumer markets in the great population areas of the world and our main focus needs to be on the things we can control or influence.
In this regard the work the specialist meat breeds have done on genetics and nutrition over recent years, coupled with the development of export markets (lamb to U.S. in particular) has been one of the great success stories of Australian agriculture.

The merino segment has often been criticised for its lack of productivity increases. However, considerable progress has been made, particularly in producing more wool of lower micron on larger animals. This real progress is masked in the aggregate figures. You could not fail to be impressed when you look at the wool quality and quantity on the magnificent animals you see around us here today.

More needs to be done to reduce wool harvesting costs, not to mention the urgency of developing practical mulesing alternatives. In the short term, whether the intradermal approach or the use of clips proves the way to go, I’m not sure. What I am confident of, is that with the current pressures the industry will find a way. Longer term, surely a genetic solution will be developed-whether that be producing bare-bottomed sheep (with plenty of wool elsewhere) or genetically developing infertile blowflies, remains to be seen. I don’t think Australia would be the poorer if the blowfly entered the threatened species list, although there would no doubt be a dark green group somewhere which would find cause for complaint. After all we now have people in Victoria trying to have the dingo declared a threatened species.
Australia produces 60/70% of the world’s apparel wool-the only broadacre industry where Australia is the dominant world producer. So it is vitally important that we have a vibrant, innovative sheep industry led in genetic terms by the stud breeders.

Whilst agriculture continues to grow in absolute terms, this growth has been tiny compared with the massive growth of our minerals and energy sector. Agriculture remains a significant contributor to our export income.

However, Australia’s ever increasing urbanisation means that agriculture is an area of considerable mystique to much of our population and is faced with a very real communications challenge in “selling” its benefits to the broader Australian populace. It is events such as the Royal Easter Show, which provide a wonderful opportunity to take up this challenge.

All too often agriculture is seen as environmentally damaging and yesterday’s business, with the wool industry in particular singled out for much criticism. How frequently do we hear the criticism, often from people who ought to know better, that all we have done in Australia is apply inappropriate European agricultural methods to a land we did not understand? This is truly insulting to our forbears, let alone to some of the world’s very best agricultural scientists.

Our forebears quickly identified the fact that merino sheep thrived, particularly in our arid and semi-arid areas and could produce top quality wool. I have always been impressed by the way our early stud breeders identified the Riverina and the Macquarie as areas where merinos would thrive and set up their studs there, so soon after white settlement.

As for being yesterday’s business, reflect on the fact that over the last 15 years, in the face of generally low prices, but with premiums for finer wools, and throw in the worst drought in Australia’s recorded history, the industry has adapted by halving the total sheep flock whilst doubling the production of wools 19micron and finer. I am not talking in % terms, but in absolute quantities.

What happened to the salinity beat-up (at least in Eastern Australia) of a decade ago? Now the negative focus is on “climate change” and the fact that we will have variable seasons. I wonder what some of these evangelists think we have been dealing with for the last 200 years?

I was much impressed with the wheat farmer on a recent Four Corners programme who when asked about climate change quite innocently responded “we definitely had that-it is always highly variable and is always changing”!

With those few observations let me conclude by simply saying-
The stud breeders of Australia of all commercial animals carry a huge responsibility to lead the way with genetic improvement. They stand at the top of the genetic pyramid and lead the industry on the genetic front.

It is imperative that they remain open-minded and embrace relevant science and technology that contributes to the need to produce ever more productive animals.

I congratulate all of the exhibitors on the quality we see before us both in the sheep and fleeces and I have great pleasure in declaring the 2008 Sydney Royal Sheep and Fleece Show officially open.

David Boyd
29.03.08