Americans buy Australian land

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 13

Americans buy Australian land

(By

DAVID D. McNICOLL)

Americans now own between 15 and 20 per cent of all Northern Territory pastoral land, according to a leading Australian pastoral expert.

In a survey with the Department of the Interior I found that Americans own at least 22 Northern Territory stations covering more than 23 million acres an area only slightly less than half the total area of Victoria.

The properties range in size from Brunette Downs (3 million acres) to Waterhouse (153,000 acres). The average American holding is just under one million acres.

A pastoral expert told me this week that the 20 per cent of the Territory owned by Americans produced more than 50 per cent of the Territory’s total beef production. He said this was because ihe Americans bought only the choicest land.

“They own virtually all the pastoral land in the high rainfall areas north

and their other holdings are on the rich Barkley Tableland,” he said. “They are not interested in the drier areas around Alice Springs.” Early this month a Texas oil tycoon, Mr N. Bunkerhunt, bought the 819,000-acre Banka Banka station near Tennant Creek. The largest American bolding in the Northern Territory is Brunette Downs, which -is owned by the Texas-based King Ranch organisation which) pastoral experts believe is now the largest private landowner in Australia with extensive hidings in Queensland, N.S.W. and Western Australia. If holdings by English interests, like Vestys, and those of Chinese businessmen from Hong Kong and Singapore are added io the American holdings, the percentage of the Northern Territory pastoral lands owned by foreign interests is close to 30 per cent. The Northern Territory land is not freehold, but the leases from the Commonwealth Government are for 99 years with the right to renew after 60 y.ears.