They hated footrot, blowflies, cattle ticks, dingoes and the Australian Labor Party, pretty much in equal measure, but reserved their deepest enmity for the ALP as it manifested itself in the early 1970s in the form of the Whitlam government.

Their influence on shaping the nation has been extraordinary, their power rippling not only across Queensland but the entire Commonwealth long before prime minister Stanley Bruce brokered the first federal coalition opposing the ALP in 1923.

Bryce Camm is a blue blood of the breed – a prime rib ­candidate for this High Steaks case study, even though he might contest the characterisation.

“My great-grandfather was actually a train driver,” Camm says evenly.

“He drove the train between Mackay and Rockhampton for years and saved enough to buy a cane farm in the Mackay region, and it was from there we moved into cattle.”

But Camm won’t contest he is an enormously wealthy man, a fourth-generation Queensland grazier, chair of Beef Australia, which is the driving force behind Rockhampton’s ‘Beef2024’, aka Beef Week, and a relative of Ron Camm, the former Bjelke-Petersen era mines and energy minister. He’s also CEO of Camm Agricultural Group, one of Australia’s largest integrated beef producing businesses with a land portfolio beyond 45,000ha, running 65,000 head of cattle across nine cattle stations.

Beyond all that, Camm is still comfortable in the saddle.

He grew up on the sprawling Natal Downs Station outside Charters Towers and is proud of the cultural heritage that grazing has bestowed upon this country, which goes well beyond our literature (think Kings in Grass Castles) and worthy personal qualities such as self-reliance and resilience.

It also includes inebriated B&S balls, rodeos, picnic race meetings and that Young Nationals look underwritten by R.M. Williams and Country Road (a look seen everywhere at Beef Week), while the grazing sector’s contribution to politics is still clearly visible in the character and philosophy of the Queensland LNP – the party likely to win the October election.

It’s taken a former Queensland Labor member for Rockhampton, Robert Schwarten, to set me up for this dinner at the magnificent “Signature Restaurant” which has plonked itself as a pop-up in the midst of Beef Week – the six-day ­carnival that is the largest beef exhibition in the Southern Hemisphere.

Camm orders a tomahawk steak for the table and, at odds with this column’s policy, insists on it being gratis (we pay the drinks bill) while the amiable Schwarto holds court, chatting cheerfully with Camm and Beef Australia vice-president Grant Cassidy.

And, just as I’m pondering how on earth I’m going to get Camm to mouth off about how his ancestors hated the “bloody commos in the ALP” with a former Labor cabinet minister sitting at my elbow, Queensland’s Labor Premier Steven Miles ambles over, sits down next to Camm, and generously presents me with a whole new range of challenges.

Miles, smiling broadly and greeted affectionately by Camm, has the table laughing as he passes around his phone with a video, taken the previous night, of him gnawing on a similar tomahawk steak.

A smiling Schwarto boasts how warmly the Beef Week crowds have embraced Miles and, amid all this merriment and political ecumenicalism, I decide it might be prudent to ditch the politics, and just talk beef. And beef is booming. The global beef trade will soon touch the half-trillion (US) dollar mark.

Those private jets lining the tarmac at Rockhampton airport last week were one of the more visible signs that Gina Rinehart is not the only billionaire eyeing off a hugely profitable future in beef cattle.

Global capital is moving in on Australian beef, with pension funds representatives from northern America flying into Beef Week to strike up partnership with Australian corporates, and making their “in-principle” agreements over rump steaks and Great Northern beers.

Australia is now producing 4 per cent of the world’s beef, placed seventh behind America, which produces 20 per cent.

But Camm says he believes Australia, despite its long history in cattle going back to the First Fleet, is just getting started when it comes to beef production.

“There is nowhere else in the world where the cattle herd is growing like in Australia,” he says.

America may have vast range lands, but its grazing country is rapidly being swallowed up by crops such as soybean. It was only four years ago, after decades of drought, that Australia’s herd had dropped well below 24 million, prompting federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter to loudly point out the dangerous absurdity of a nation allowing itself to have fewer cattle than people.

But three years of good rain has put us back on track with Meat and Livestock Australia estimating the herd at more than 28 million while the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences puts it slightly lower at 25.7 million.

And Australians are consuming beef at an astonishing rate. We are among the biggest consumers of beef on the planet with a yearly per capita consumption of around 24kg in 2022 while the global average was 6.3kg.

Meanwhile Asians, especially the Chinese, are learning the joys of a steak on a plate rather than slicing up meat for traditional meals while in India, the Muslim population is also consuming far more red meat, influenced by western “burger” culture.

“There is now a rate of about 1kg of (annual) beef consumption in India,” Camm says.

“We’re finding modern youths in India now want to enjoy a good burger.”

Climate change might be the elephant in the room in any discussion about the beef industry – but Camm is happy to point to it. Cattle are great carbon emitters, according to the experts, and the more radical elements inside the global Green movement would ban beef if they had their way, pointing to plant-based protein as the viable alternative.

Yet it was only last week that a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation-led study revealed Australia’s red meat and livestock industry had slashed its net greenhouse emissions by 78 per cent since 2005.

“We are actually leaders in emissions reductions – you don’t read much about it, but we are,” Camm says.

As for the plant-based protein movement, well, Camm welcomes it – provided, of course, that manufacturers don’t use the word “meat” in the labelling.

“I think there is plenty of space in the market for everyone,” Camm says. “But meat is simply one of the highest-quality means of protein available and it will always command a higher premium. Just look at what happened during Covid – all the Australian beef went off the shelves, and those shelves were left with all the plant-based protein.’ The consumer will decide in the end, and my bet is they will pick beef.”

Camm and Cassidy have to leave. The truth is they only ordered the tomahawk and drank a beer because they wanted to make me feel more comfortable for our 45-minute chat before they moved on to their formal dinner for the night. So Schwarto and I remain, picking at the Tomahawk which, given it was both free and delicious, rates a perfect 10 out of 10.

The ageing Labor legend also counsels me that, while my “graziers hate the ALP” theme contains a strong element of truth, there were quite a few exceptions.

“Some of them were Irish,” he points out. “And they always voted Labor.”