REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Friday November 12, 2004

ONE of the Gold Coast’s last dairy dynasties turned off the pumps, going from morning battlers to multi-millionaires.

The Coulter family, who worked the Pimpama dairy over five generations after buying it

£1800, in the late 1800s for settled the sale to undisclosed developers for ‘a bit over’ $30 million.

The family agonised over selling the land after offers for the growth corridor site started in 2003, but deregulation and the cost of feed in the drought sealed the decision.

Before their windfall, John and Glenn Coulte rose at 3am and worked through to 8pm to provide for their families.

John and son Chance, then5, looked over a sea of green paddocks, revitalised by recent rain. Soon they were to swap the green for a sea of blue, celebrating their sale with a cruise holiday.

Despite the instant riches, it would still be difficult for the family to shake old habits.

After a deluge, the instant millionaire was still up to his knees in mud fixing a perimeter fence to protect 50 cows.

John, then-38, joined the family on the farm when he was 15. He said the likelihood of another family such as the Coulters, Oxenfords or Hinzes starting up in the industry again was non-existent. He said he would be surprised if any farmers were in the game by 201.

John said deregulation in 2000 sounded the death knell for the industry. The Coulters tried to counteract the negative impacts of deregulation by diversifying into the nearby strawberry farm, and cutting out the middleman by bottling their own milk.