Pollies brand us criminals, says Theodore grazier

"They take our guns away, we're not allowed to clear land; there's too many rules and regulations, it's squeezing the farmers out.”

FARMERS 'SQUEEZED': Denis Urquhart from Theodore at the Central Queensland Livestock Exchange (CQLX). Picture: Jann Houley

BORN and raised on Harcourt station outside Baralaba, Denis Urquhart has spent his life on the land.

He and his wife have lived in the Theodore district for 25 years, grazing cattle and raising three sons.

One is on the land and another operates dozers; the third wants to get into grazing but there's so much concern over the future for farmers he's holding off for now.

When asked what's contributed to the farmers' problems, Mr Urquhart's answer is very much to the point: "politicians”.

"Palaszczuk and her kind had introduced very hard guidelines, they practically brand farmers as criminals,” he said.

"They take our guns away, we're not allowed to clear land; there's too many rules and regulations, it's squeezing the farmers out.

"They don't seem to understand no one wants to abuse their country because that's their livelihood.

"There's probably a few cowboys who do the wrong thing but 99 per cent do the right thing, look after the land.”

On his 1600 hectares, Mr Urquhart runs only 300 breeders "because of dry conditions”, and he's swapping out his preferred breed, brahman, for the flat-backed droughtmaster charbray cross.

"Normally feedlot gives you a penalty for humped beasts,” he said.

"It's just a scam, it doesn't change anything; all the old fellas used to make corned beef out of them.”

"There's no penalty straight to abattoir but Woolies and Coles and those blokes won't pay for them so the feedlot guys can't take them.”

At the CQLX (Gracemere) saleyards yesterday, Mr Urquhart hoped to offload a trailer load, 36 of this year's calves.

"We're in a pretty severe drought out there; the feed is disappearing quickly and the wet season window is closing quickly,” he said.

"We had reasonable rain in 2017, and some places got 150mm recently, but at my place we only got 15mm.

"Coming into winter the growing season comes to an end so unless we get rain soon it's going to be quite scary.”

Mr Urquhart predicted meat prices would fluctuate as a result of the estimated 500,000 cattle which perished in the recent flood disaster.

"Fat cattle will be in short supply so that price will go up,” he said.

"If we flood the market with our cattle now, the price will go down in the short term, but unless we can restock, then the prices will skyrocket.”

Mr Urquhart feared many graziers would not be able to survive the double whammy of drought and flood.

"Those smaller suppliers, under 10,000 head for example, might have been in debt for years,” he said.

"They've not only lost livestock but also infrastructure such as fences, so if banks don't give them the money or they can't afford it, they won't recover.”

He said breeding cows would become "very valuable” in replenishing stock numbers but keeping them in decent condition, under the current crisis,would prove difficult.

Originally published as Pollies brand us criminals, says Theodore grazier