The Mob Ch. 02

The early season went well for the Mears. The following rains were light, but after the initial good soak, enough to keep them going. For those who missed out the first time, which was almost everyone, what fell later was 'bloody useless'.

The family drove the forty minutes to town. They had errands to run. Shirley needed to restock on groceries and gossip, while Chooka had to register for the next term at the Catholic school. After years of home-schooling, his mother put her foot down, insisting he start his proper education before he turned ten.

Ian had a small issue he wanted to discuss with his local member.

Tom Hunter was a politician of thirty years standing and a good man. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and perhaps this is why he remained a good man, but fiercely principled and determined. Recognised in parliament as 'the voice of the bush', insofar as the bush consisted of Christian farmers. Colleagues and opponents alike treated him with the sort of vague good nature that politically came very close to contempt. Few, however, dared stand against him when he spoke for 'the little bloke' or the 'average Australian'.

How the average Australian had unarguably become a man on a farm rather than, say... a working mother in the suburbs, was something that infuriated and bewildered his fellow members in equal measure. Nevertheless, every politician must pick his battles.

"Gee, I don't know Ian. That law's been off the books since the nineties. How big is the mob?"

"Only about a hundred at the moment, but getting bigger every day. God knows where they're coming from. If we don't start thinning the numbers soon it'll be a bloody mess."

Tom scribbled some thoughts on a notepad as he spoke.

"Generally speaking they don't compete for the same feed anyway, unless there's nothing else, or the mob grows so large that no patch of land can provide for them."

Ian didn't like the sound of that. He'd really only come in on humanitarian grounds.

"I just don't want the poor buggers to starve."

"Oh, no danger there, at least not initially. Kangaroos are faster and smarter than sheep. They eat fresh shoots, just out of the ground for preference. Your stock will starve before they do."

Things suddenly came sharply into focus. A moment ago he'd just dropped by to save a few animals a little suffering, but the more Tom spoke, the more Ian realised he was kidding himself. It was always about the farm. Now Tom was spelling out all the possibilities he'd never allowed himself to consider.

"They'll be coming from the west. They had a few good seasons in a row. Plenty of time to get the population booming. Dry as a bone now."

"How many?"

Tom looked up from his notes. "A lot."

"Maybe they'll pass through? There's enough feed here for my sheep, but that's about all."

"No, Ian. They won't do that, and I'll tell you why. Come up here."

The Minister picked up a pointer and walked Ian to a map of the electorate on the wall.

"Here's your property. You've got the Coopers to the east, whose crop appears to be dirt this year. To your west is crown land, which they've eaten out. There's a pine forest to the north, which has all the undergrowth and biodiversity of a firebreak, and to the south there's a few square miles of land that would smash a tiller in minutes, followed by a quarry, followed by a salt lake."

"You know, that lake wasn't always so salty."

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Not very diplomatic, mate." He shook it off. "As I was saying, there's nowhere else for them to go."

They returned to the desk.

"How big's your property?"

"Eight thousand hectares. So what am I looking at here? How big could the mob get?"

Tom Hunter leaned back in his chair, the tips of his fingers touching, his hands cradled over his stomach.

"A similar thing happened in Queensland, back in '83. You remember that one, we all thought that was a drought." He shook his head. "Anyway, it was a thirty thousand hectare property."

Ian leaned forward. "How many, Tom?"

"Twenty-five thousand."

Chooka, Charles for the moment, didn't talk during the interview. He wasn't uncomfortable with strangers, it was the small room, the desk and the smiling rhetorical questions that made him nervous.

"There's no need to worry. Charles will fit right in, won't you Charles?"

Fit right into what? His chair?

The principal frowned and lowered her voice, although obviously not enough so Chooka couldn't hear. He was sitting right next to her. What was she, mental?

"We'll start him in fourth grade for a few weeks and see how he goes."

"Alright then," she continued in her talking to the whole room again voice, "I think we're all done. Listen, I don't suppose you could do me a favour? I promised to get out to my sisters today, but Father Matthew's taken the car. She's about ten kilometers out Clayton Road."

After Chooka's performance, She could hardly say no. Shirley wouldn't have blamed the silly old nun if she suggested the special school.

"Of course, Sister Margaret."

Ian paced the Minister's office.

"I could have six thousand kangaroos on my property?"

"Maybe more. Maybe less of course, but I wouldn't count on it. What have you got invested in this year?"

Ian stopped, the colour drained from his face. He grabbed the back of his chair, not pleading, he was too proud for that. Instead he spoke with a gruff sort of directionless anger. Tom had long ago interpreted this as the same thing.

"Everything. This is the last roll of the dice, Tom. I can't just break even, I can't just pay for next years feed, this has to be the one. It's not like I've been reckless, it's been ten years, Tom. Ten bloody years of drought! You have to let me cull them."

"I understand your position, Ian, but you're asking me to go to parliament and suggest you be allowed to blow the heads off thousands of kangaroos. City blokes get very squeamish about that sort of thing. There'll be protests. All the usual ratbags will come out of the woodwork to give me a kicking. Not just me, mate, but the whole bloody bush. Once again we'll be stereotyped as backward rednecks who want nothing more than to wipe out our national emblem for a bit of a laugh."

"I don't want to wipe them out!"

Tom put his hands up, trying to calm him down.

"I know mate, I know. Believe me, you couldn't. Not even if you spent the rest of your life on the back of a ute with a spotlight in one hand and a shotty in the other. The kangaroo is the most populous untamed large mammal on the planet, but try telling the bleeding hearts. There are websites actually dedicated to saving the kangaroo! Trust me, they've been saved."

"Then why won't you support me?"

"Now hang on, I didn't say I won't support you. I'm just saying it won't be easy. This isn't about how things are, it's about how things look. And few things look more shithouse than thousands of kangaroo carcasses."

Chooka felt much better in the car. His mum and Sister Margaret were getting along fine and he didn't feel interrogated anymore.

A pause in the conversation gave the principal a moment to take in the flat, dry fields outside, and it occurred to her that here was a perfect opportunity to better assess her new student's level of education.

"What's that out there, Charles. A baa-lamb?"

He looked out the window.

"Nah, thats a Merino wether crossed with the new Argentinian strain. You get a bit more yield on 'em, but they're a bastard for fly-strike."

"Chook-," his mother spluttered, "I mean, Charles! Does this look like a shearing shed to you?"

"No, mum. Sorry, Sister Margaret."

"He works with the roustabouts at shearing time. You know, sweeping up, just being useful. I'm afraid he picks up some of their banter."

Sister Margaret was shocked, but in the groove. She knew how the next question was supposed to go, and she was going to ask it.

"Quite. And... what does a Merino wether..."

"Crossed with the new Argentinian strain..."

"Indeed. And what does it say?"

This puzzled Chooka.

"It's a sheep, Sister Margaret. It don't say f- "

Shirley slammed the bottom of her palm on the horn.

"Crows! On the road! Sorry!"

In the backseat, Chooka continued mulling things over. Bar Lamb.

"Mum, what's a Bar Lamb?"

He looked out the window at another ewe.

"Bar Lamb? Bloody hell, they must be big -"

Shirley put her foot down and blasted the horn again, screaming "Bloody Crows!"

It was a quiet but not necessarily peaceful drive back to the farm. Each person in the car had plenty to think about, and even more when Chooka got out of the back to open the first gate.

"Strewth."

"Oh, Ian. Nobody talks like that anymore." She admonished him out of habit, there was no sting in it. "Except Alf Stewart." In fact neither of them had any expression in their voices as they stared, motionless, out the car window.

"Where's his property?"

"Summer Bay."

The mob had grown since they left.

Shirley put the kettle on. She found it usually helped. Chooka and his Dad sat either side of the kitchen table, ready to go over the battle plans.

It worried Shirley that her nine year-old son behaved more like a business partner than a child. He had all the enthusiasm of youth, he loved his sport and... what else were boys his age supposed to like? Toys. She was sure of that. Robots that turned into dinosaurs and... skateboards? Her imagination ran out. Kids things, anyway. Shirley made other, equally compelling arguments to her husband for enrolling Chooka in school, but kept her most pressing concern to herself. Chooka was never silly. Oh, he had a smart mouth on him, but even that was picked up from the shearers, from adults. He never pretended. He never played.

"We can't just wait for Mr. Hunter, Dad. We have to do something."

"The only thing we can do is work hard and pray, understand?"

"Can we keep 'em away?"

"Nah. You can't herd 'roos. It's like trying to cart water with a sieve. You can fire above their heads and they'll scatter, but the silly bastards just come back."

Shirley shot her husband a lock.

"Mind your language at the dinner table, please."

"Sorry, darl'."

"Can't we aim a bit lower, Dad?"

Ian slapped the table hard.

"No, we can't! You know how the law stands and I didn't raise you to go around breaking the law."

Chooka dropped his head.

Shirley brought the tea and sat down as unobtrusively as possible. She knew this wasn't the time, but couldn't stop herself if she tried. She was the peacemaker, the conciliator, and if a mood needed lightening, then she was compelled to lighten it.

"Maybe we should sell the sheep and farm the kangaroos, eh?"

Chooka's eyes lit up. "We could, Dad."

"No."

"But there's kangaroo fur and kangaroo leather and kangaroo steak and kangaroo..."

"I said, 'no'. Hunter said the market's flooded already. The state won't give out any more licenses. There's fifty million of the bastards, sorry Darl', in this country. We already knock off two million a year. It's not enough to stop the population growing, but it exceeds demand for the product by about fifty percent. Bloody TAN."

"Who's TAN, love?"

"Oh, some weird bloody mob Hunter mentioned. Treat Animals Nicely. They reckon it's cruel to shoot 'em and pressure our customers not to buy any."

"Oh, I've heard of them," said Shirley. "That silly young American pop singer's with them, what's her name? She was on the telly talking about mulesing."

This disclosure derailed the conversation for a moment.

Chooka was aware of pop stars. They lived in a world called Hollywood, where everyone drove limousines and the most important question you could be asked was not what, but who you were wearing. A pop star talking about something that happened on his farm was as likely as Batman dropping by to help out with the shearing.

"Mulesing sheep, mum?"

"Yep. She said it was cruel, so people shouldn't buy Australian wool."

"What in the blue blazes would she know about it?" her husband exploded. "Do you see me on telly saying..." Ian stumbled as he searched for anything he might possibly say about pop music, gave up and finished with an exasperated growl.

Chooka, wanting to follow the accepted custom, asked the important question.

"Who was she wearing, mum?"

"She didn't say. Although I did notice she was wearing ug boots at the time."

Extract from Hansard, Australian Government, April 19.

Tom Hunter (Member for Moollawarra, National Party):

Mr. Speaker, I direct my question to the Prime Minister. I am sure the Prime Minsiter is aware, Mr. Speaker, that the crippling drought that has so harshly crippled the average Australian, Mr. Speaker, is now entering its tenth year.

In my electorate, Mr. Speaker.... Mr. Speaker, in my electorate I am constantly confronted with the confronting reality of life on the land for hard-working, honest, ordinary Aussies, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier... I ask the Prime Minister Mr. Speaker... is he aware of new developments developing, Mr. Speaker, in the heartland of this great nation.

Has he, or has he not, Mr. Speaker, reviewed the laws which he introduced, Mr. Speaker, which he introduced, overturning the sensible policies of the previous government?

Laws that bind the hands of everyday Australians, Mr. Speaker, every single day!

Is he aware, Mr. Speaker, of the growing plague that grows in our state even as we speak, Mr. Speaker, even as we speak?

Will he, Mr. Speaker, will he repeal this unjust and unfair law that breaks the backs of fair dinkum Aussie Australians, or will he sit idly by Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, idly by, as he grinds our proud Australian farmers, proud Australian farmers Mr. Speaker, into the dirt and off the land forever?

[A short recess was taken as the Member for Blacktown sought clarification as to what the question actually was.]

Harry Bugeja (Member for Blacktown, Australian Labor Party):

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for Moollawarra for his question, and further thank him, Mr. Speaker, for putting it so succinctly, as this is an issue, an issue, Mr. Speaker, that effectively effects so many ordinary Australians.

Ordinary Australians, Mr. Speaker, good, honest, hard-working, you beaut, dinky-di Aussies, Mr. Speaker, who have voted this government into office at the last three elections.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

"... oh, it was vigorously debated, mate. Things got a bit hot in there, I can tell you."

Ian paced the kitchen, his knuckles white around the phone.

"Then there's a chance, right? Talk to people, you're a politician for god's sake."

"I can't bring it up in parliament again mate, Jackson wants us to stay on message."

"Jackson's a bloody Liberal! He cares about big business, not the struggling farmer!"

"I know mate, I know. But we're a coalition and he's the leader and he insists we stick to the stationery scandal."

Ian was interested despite himself.

"The what?"

"Oh, one of the P. M.'s assistant's kids was caught using a government supplied pen at school. We're trying to get him to resign over it."

"Will he?"

"No, of course not. But it makes him look either incompetent or corrupt, which can't harm our chances."

"Really? You don't think it makes you look petty and ridic-, look, never mind that. I'm dying out here, Tom. This is the best start to the year I've ever had, but the stock's starving!"

The line lay silent while Tom considered.

"Alright, I'll give it one more crack. Outside parliament though, that stuck-up little mummy's boy can't tell me what to say there. I have to tell you though mate, I still have to wait a bit, and it probably won't work. TAN will be all over this like flies on muck. Even if I can get something to happen, it'll probably be too late for you. You have to start thinking about your options."