Can one Sunday morning phone call really change the direction of your life?
Looking back and reflecting on it I can say that a single phone-call, from a stranger, well and truly changed my life. It has also changed my family’s life, the community in which I live, and in a broader sense, it’s changed communities across NSW and Australia.
My family has a long history of farming in NSW. I grew up in a farming community between Bellata and Gurley south of Moree in north west NSW. It’s where I live now.
Despite going away to boarding school, backpacking around the world, and working in Sydney, I married the boy next door to my parents. We have three young children and together we farm grain – wheat, chickpeas, faba beans, canola – and cotton.
The Bellata district is home to just over 400 people and is renowned for being one of the most productive agricultural areas in Australia. It produces high quality durum wheat which is well known throughout the world. Farms from this region produce all year round on dryland cropping systems.
I will never forget that Sunday morning. It was the June 26 2011 at 8:20 am. As I relaxed in bed, I heard my husband, Robbie, answer the phone and ask, with some shock in his voice, “Where do you want to drill for gas?”
The phone call was from a woman representing a mining company asking to explore and drill for coal seam gas on our property. She was eager to get an access agreement and she said they would put the exploration site somewhere in scrubby bushland in a place we did not care about. There would also be a 16-man work camp, for up to six months.
I couldn’t help but wonder what she meant by a place we did not care about. What farmer does not care about all parts of their property? And 16 men living on our property for up to six months? Surely she was kidding?
At that point I knew nothing about the relevant laws or the impact that having coal seam gas exploration and production on your farm can have. So I began gathering information and seeking out people that were experts in relevant fields.
I immediately noticed the lack of balance between the rights of landholders and the mining industry. There also seemed to be a disregard of our laws to protect farmlands, water resources and community.
My heart breaks knowing that the law in NSW allows coal seam gas mining just 200 metres from our home – and 50 metres from our garden. My children love playing in our garden and now the gas company want to come on to our farm. Our home.
For the past couple of years I have been leading my community and campaigning for the rights of landholders. In my community every single landholder has locked the gate to coal seam gas. We were the first community to achieve 100% support among local residents for our farmlands to be protected from coal seam gas exploration and mining.
For me this campaign has been organic – there was no whiteboard, no flow chart, and certainly no previously held aspirations to join politics. The goal for me was simple: to protect my family, community and farmland from irresponsible mining and to improve the rights of all landholders across NSW.
How hard could that be? I am a Mum, I can multi-task and I can negotiate, I thought to myself.
I can’t explain the connection I have with the land or the drive I have found to fight against coal seam gas and improving our laws. Being a farmer’s daughter is certainly a component of this. Perhaps it’s the lifetime of experiences from wonderful harvests to no harvests, from drought to flooding rain. Or perhaps it’s the smell of dirt and hard work on our clothes. The future of our children certainly weighs heavily.
As the first of three daughters I’ve always had a sense of responsibility. At 18 I visited the accountant and solicitor with Dad. I had a Will drawn up and I was told about the responsibilities of being the eldest child, Dad explained to me the detail behind running a successful farm.
I’ve also been lucky to have a caring, nurturing, well organised Mum, who has now become our number one support network, allowing me to head off to research, network and lobby for change.
I never in my wildest dreams anticipated that an early morning phone call from a stranger wanting to explore for coal seam gas on our farm would lead to me now running as a Greens candidate for the Senate, in the 2013 Federal election, in the heartland of Nationals’ country.
The realisation of my decision hit me last week when I spent three days representing the Greens who were exhibiting for the first time at AgQuip in Gunnedah, the largest farm field day in the southern hemisphere.
We received plenty of encouragement and support but two moments from our week at AgQuip stand out to me: an 84 year old grandmother who after a lifetime of living on the land and voting for the one party walked with a frame to find me to tell me that she was changing her vote for me. And then there was the farmer and artist who said he was going to cast a donkey vote this election, until he read in The Land newspaper that I had put my hand up.
Farmers need to know that they are being listened to and understood. I am a farmer, a wife, a mum, an accidental activist and now a potential politician – I hope my actions have created conversations and given farmers and the community a new opportunity to be heard.
Perhaps I should buy a whiteboard!