By VICTORIA BROWN
The world has gone mad. I swear I hear or read this phrase nearly every day of the week from people crying out for some sense and sensibility from their fellow Australians and those who are running our state and nation.
The foundations of the Western Australia that I stepped onto over forty years ago are starting to rattle in places. Some who love the freedom of the bush, the land, the sea, and all that those wide-open spaces have to offer, feel under threat. As Trevor Whittington remarked in his Farm Weekly column of April 4: “The Western Australia of old, where camping, fishing, shooting, and four wheel driving were a part of our culture, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past”.
Slowly but surely some of the places that we have taken for granted as ours to visit and enjoy, are in the firing line for restricted access for the average Australian for a variety of reasons, with traditional owners potentially having the power to determine who gets a license to go in and what that will cost, and who will be left out in the cold.
Last year we were up in the Kimberley in a small boat, and we called in at Freshwater Cove. We’d paid online for our Dambimangari Visitor Pass and were happy to do so. It was about the cost of a campsite in a caravan park. As we neared the shore an unfriendly voice boomed out on the radio: “Do not approach the land. State your name and boat and reason for passing through this country. You cannot come any closer.” Not quite the welcome to country we were expecting, but we diffused his aggression with a “G’day mate. Just some old codgers from Kepa Kurl Wudjari country on the South Coast travelling though this beautiful part of the world. Spectacular, isn’t it?” He did soften a bit and tell us to call him on the radio if we got into any trouble, but we didn’t get asked in for a cuppa.
I sometimes feel we’re heading for a train wreck. That it’s time to tell government to slow down and take a breath before trying to railroad through more ill-thought-out legislation that is certainly going to affect the businesses, lifestyles and pastimes of farmers, outdoor adventurers and people who live in and love to visit the regions. Where has common sense gone?
To end, here’s another crazy fact. Many people who live in the metropolis don’t know where milk comes from, what a hamburger is made of, and believe choc milk comes from brown cows. I’m not being funny. They believe “If you need food go to the store”. That milk comes from cartons and meat comes on a polystyrene tray covered in cellophane. They have no concept of farming, agriculture or sustainability.
That’s worrying for those of us farming in the regions and more so for those needing the product of that farming in the city. Time for government to step up, methinks.
