CATTLE INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26727, 10 May 1952, Page 8

CATTLE INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA

Disastrous Effects Of Drought (Special Correspondent N.Z.PA) (Rec 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 9. Only now, when it is rapidly becoming too late for effective salvage measures, is the full magnitude of the disaster to Australia’s beef industry being reali.ed in Canberra and the eastern States. When a leading meat industrialist, Sir William Anghss, sa id this week that the slightest spread of the present drought conditions in northern Australia would mean that Australia would have to import beef from Ne v Zealand for her own consumption he was stating no more than a fact which has been known for some months to northern graziers. In Queensland and the Northern Territory, where the bulk of Australia’s catle roam almost at will on vast sparsely-covered pastures, virtually no monsoonal rains have fallen this season. With all hope of rains gone and the normally dry winter period advancing, these herds are facing extinc-

Though water still exists in bores ng KT he ,_ ov erland stock route from the Northern Territory across the Barkly table land to the railhead in Queensland, there is no feed of any Kind. A few adventurous and desperate stockmen are trying a nineteenth fentury route via the Gulf of Carpentaria, but old hands say their chances ar ®., ess I- lan even. The surviving cattle must stay on the barren pastures until they die—unless some spectacular plan can be brought into operation quickly.

, Aid of Army Sought with this in view, a deputation of northern graziers is now in Canberra, iheir solution, as outlined by Mr J IhiX 6 ' ma ,D a ging director of the 4.0(X).000-acre Brunette Downs station is drastic and at the same time feasJble. He asked Mr Menzies yesterdav to throw Army transport into the area I? a J? u g e organised operation to move the threatened cattle and to concentrate Army engineers in a bore-sinking project to relieve the plight of those eattle which could not be moved. This is the worst drought we have ever experienced,” said Mr White It needs a snectacular remedy. We have missed the monsoon and we have nine months of drought still ahead of us. This is a complete disaster for us and for Australia—unless the Army moves.”

Another solution which has been tried experimentally is that of using trains and road transport to distribute fodder along stock routes. This has never been tried before, but one mob of 500 cattle rescued in this way brought £46 a head in Adelaide. Many Northern Territory graziers, while asking that something be done, blame the administration rather than this single drought for the disaster. They say that the nineteenth century Texas system of the onen range is out of date in the twentieth century. Australia should provide graziers with security of tenure, thus permitting the introduction of modern intensive cattle farming.