Turning Grass Into T-Bones

For a sheep and wheat man whose home is near Geraldton, 2,500 km to the south and west, Peter Burton, 63, has grown very fond of the Kimberley. “If you live here and die here you have to go somewhere else,” says the wiry farmer, rolling a cigarette. “Because you’ve already been to Heaven.” Some district cattlemen consider him a blow-in, but Burton is finding this stage of his life busier than he expected. “Supposedly ret-ired,” he says, with mischief in his eyes. “I was happy catching crayfish and sinking piss.” But now he’s living at Springvale and running several properties for his son Jack, whose base is Yeeda Station near Derby, a 600-km drive west. “Bought this place three years ago for $15.2 million. Now it’s worth $38 million. Maybe. We’re here for the long haul.”

Springvale homestead, an hour’s drive from Halls Creek, was the home of legendary cattleman and bush poet Tom Quilty. Until the 1886 gold rush, the station was one of this region’s few inhabited places. Historian Geoffrey Blainey described men with gold lust traveling the final 1,000 km from Katherine. “The manager of Spring Vale reported that ‘great numbers of men from Queensland have passed by, some of them very undesirable characters, who prefer picking their own beef and horse-flesh,'” he writes in The Rush That Never Ended. “They faked the brands on their stolen horses with any piece of iron they could find, and at Kimberley one could see horses from nearly every pastoral run in Northern Australia.”

Today, visitors to the property are greeted by the Burton name flanked by a shamrock. A small helicopter (all stock mustering is now done with choppers) is parked not far from the old house. In a nearby paddock, a dozen fit horses graze; breathy plumes escape from nostrils in the cool early-morning air. Burton points out a rust-colored old shack. Surprisingly sturdy, it was built by Aboriginal workers out of anthills and spinifex. “This is where they’d sleep when they weren’t camping out,” says Burton. Those stockmen may have been flint hard, he says, but they were also well looked after. They were paid in provisions—sugar, tea, butter, flour and meat. Their kids were often sent to private schools, the fees paid by wealthy pastoralists. “The [late ’60s] equal-pay decision mucked up the old system,” says Burton. “It made workers too expensive. So most Aborig-inal stockmen ended up losing their jobs, stuck on welfare.”

Like many cockies, Burton is a mix of strong opinions and grit. Yet there’s a sense that he has softened, perhaps even been humbled. Farmers are often derided by environmentalists and animal-rights activ-ists for not respecting the land and ill-treating their stock. “We were bastards before. Now we’ve changed,” says Burton, pointing out several improved farming practices. “Let’s work together and look after the land. But give us a break. I say, Sort out the cities first. You people could become another Indonesia.” There’s a Big Australia ethos behind his thinking. Burton believes in exploiting the nation’s assets—from resources to pastures—while the demand is there, and to feed Asia’s hordes. As well, when he gets started, Burton’s not easy to stop on a harangue about overzealous state regulation and beef industry levies.

Burton is full of praise for young Jack’s enterprise and outlook. “You have to try different styles of management and new methods,” he says. “There’s better stock control, feed and water management. You just need to utilize the res-ources that good old J.C. put there. We’re looking for more production all the time.” The Burtons cautiously employ the ideas of nutritionists and agro-nomists. “You can’t go in with a theory and spend a squillion. First run a trial.” It’s the tough times when fortunes are made; the family has taken risks, been lucky and studied how smart people make and implement decisions. “In good seasons you learn very little,” says Burton. “In bad seasons you learn your country.”

Next to the highway, a dozen station hands and visitors are helping to load a double-decker, three-carriage road train; 1,200 hooves are bound for nearby Alice Downs and then Wyndham for shipping. As ringers crack whips, three women are prodding mickeys (young bulls) through a series of pens; red dust and deep-voiced murmurs of “Get on” and “Go” fill the air. Burton, fag in hand, strides about. The mickeys are the most economical stock; there’s little price premium in fattening them up. “The whole operation is about turning grass into T-bones,” he says. “It’s a magic industry.”By 9.30 a.m., it’s smoko. The billy boils, banter flows. Cook Jill has brought buttered bread, treacle and sausage rolls. Slightly less grubby from work than the men and Swedish traveler Christine are two first-year veterinary science students from Melbourne. Emma Zalcman and Kristie Jennings are getting valuable farm exp-erience and having fun. “The interaction between city and country people has virtually gone,” says Burton, who stayed up most of the previous night getting to know the youngsters. “No one seems to have relatives in the bush anymore.”