THE BIG HANDS ON OUR LANDS
QUEENSLAND’S biggest cowboys farm an area the size of New Zealand.
A Courier-mail investigation can reveal the state’s 10 largest landowners occupy more than 27 million hectares – the same size as New Zealand and more than twice the size of Greece – with owners ranging from Dutch public servants to UK
AWX LABOUR HIRE FIRM BOSS TOM STRACHAN billionaires and some richest families.
The Macquarie Bank-backed Macquarie Agriculture is Queensland’s biggest landholder with more than 4.06 million hectares of farmland as part of a national footprint of 4.7 million hectares worth more than $2.7bn.
One of the key backers of Macquarie Agriculture’s three agriculture-specific funds is Stichting of
Australia’s
Pensioenfonds ABP – The Netherlands’ chief pension fund for government and education employees.
Second is the North Australian Pastoral Company, backed by the Queensland Investment Corporation, with 3.73 million hectares, while Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, rounds out the major placings with a portfolio of 3.55 million hectares.
Other major investors in rural
Queensland include Mcdonald Holdings with 3.36 million hectares and Asx-listed Australian Agricultural Company with 3.3 million hectares. British billionaire Joe Lewis owns a 45 per cent stake in the Australian Agricultural Company – the nation’s largest beef producer.
Macquarie Agriculture’s Paraway Pastoral fund owns Queensland’s biggest farm – the 1.51 million hectare
Davenport Downs at Winton. The North Australian Pastoral Company holds the second-biggest, the 1.29 million hectare Marion Downs Station at Boulia. Third-biggest, the 1.03 million-hectare Tanbar Station at Windorah, is also owned by Paraway.
According to the federal government, about 15.5 million hectares, or 11 per cent, of Queensland farmland was foreign-owned at June 30, 2019 – down slightly on the previous year. Major Queensland farm sales this year include the 705,000-hectare Wollogorang and Wentworth stations in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which sold to the Mcmillan Pastoral Company from Cloncurry for $53m, and 55,000-hectare Terrick Terrick Station at Blackall, which sold to Brisbane-based AAM Investment Group for an undisclosed sum.