General news
12 February, 2025
No ‘Gaye Old Time’ for generational farming widow
Gaye fights NSW DECCEW over pink land
DWIGHT D. Eisenhower once famously said – “farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” While Eisenhower wasn’t thinking of the 21st century trials and tribulations of Bland Shire farmers, his quote still rings eerily true decades later. In other words, populists and accountants with no agriculture experience are still telling landholders what they can can’t do with their land years later – and it shows no signs of changing.
Gaye Wheatley has been on her farm for nearly half a century. The Wheatley-Hawkins family have farmed there since 1909 and when Gaye married Ned in 1976, the couple settled at “Arcadia” – an area covering 4700 acres at Bellarwi that is a haven for flora and fauna and began caring for the land while running cereal crops, producing eucalyptus oil and using broombush to run a fencing business. At 75 years old though, and nearly 20 years on since Ned’s passing, Gaye was looking at winding down – that was until the Department of Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water (DECCEW) changed all that with the stroke of a pen, rendering much of her property pink and fiscally impotent.
Gaye, like many landholders in the Bland Shire, can’t make a legal living from the shaded pink areas of her property and as a result she can’t sell it either because it has no value to buyers. She is stuck in a financial purgatory created by “Bondi Bushies” who have “never even been out to see her or her farm”.
“Along with other landholder’s in West Wyalong I am still waiting for a response to my questions sent to Minister Sharpe, Dept Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water (DECCEW), requesting her immediate attention. NSW Government’s new land category has stopped landowner’s ability to earn any income from their land,” Gaye said.
“We are expected to maintain it but can’t earn off it.”
At an age when many are looking at a change of pace, Gaye has been forced into a battle she didn’t choose to protect what her, Ned and the family have built over generations.
“We are banned from making a living off our land yet the Broombush we can no longer use has been utilised by governments for decades for eco-friendly fencing at places like Uluru Park, Flemington Racecourse, zoos and more,” said Gaye.
“Landholder’s who have sustainably managed their land, often for generations, and have now lost their livelihoods as the DECCEW pursues their environmental objectives at the expense of hardworking landholders,” she said.
“The sad thing is there was no contact or consultation – all this has been sprung on us.”
Mallee and broombush are hardy plants that have been used all over the world to re-establish marginal land.
“The farm has long been a showcase example of the environment and farming working together. We’ve built dams for the wildlife, while producing crops that benefit people and animals, eucalyptus oils and broombush fencing. Suddenly now that all counts for nothing,” said Gaye.
“There’s been no reimbursement, just abuse and threats of fines”.
The angst is the result of the NSW Government’s ill thought-out regulation and the recently rolled out Native Vegetation Map. A map many dispute the accuracy of let alone it’s fairness.
“It has been made with zero consideration as to the economic and social impacts on landholders and the community”.
While Gaye fights the DECCEW, in her mid-seventies, she thinks it is sad that she has to do this after dedicating more than half her life to the farm.
“One day you think it’s all okay and the next day they can take everything just like that - without any questions.
“This country is going mad. We all know why they are doing it, there’s a market there and someone somewhere is benefiting from our land and our effort,” she said.
“Imagine someone walking onto Minister Sharpe’s property or any other Sydneysider, and telling them what they can and can’t do? I don’t think anyone would like it either”.
If the master’s eye is the best fertiliser as the old saying goes, it maybe time some of these pen pushers paid a visit to the very farmers they are black listing and listened to their concerns. God forbid.
Read More: West Wyalong
